Fireworks Plays Current Cohort 2023-2024 Alice Siregar Writer/Performer Alice is a local queer woman, daughter of immigrant parents. Similar to her real life, her stories centre queer issues as a way to inform and elicit empathy from the audience towards her community. She previously wrote and performed at the Montreal Fringe Festival with her play Our Next Guest. Anna Morreale Writer/Performer Anna Morreale is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto and Montreal. Since graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 2021, Anna has been working professionally in the theatre, film and voice acting industries, alongside their writing and producing practices. They are inspired by art that is absurd, surreal, intrepid and accessible. Lumi Mitton Writer/Performer I am a writer, sculptor, and performer. My forms are almost as varied as my themes, but my specialties are ceramics, poetry, playwriting, clown, and drawing. My work is inspired by a long life of medical disasters, queer tragedies, and my mother. Their core themes are the body, surrealism, ecology, chronic pain, motherhood, and cancer. I have an obsession with trying to heal old wounds. I live in Montreal, but was born and raised in Upper Rexton, NB, on the Richibucto River. My work is deeply rooted in my youth and experiences in Eastern Canada. Elly Pond Writer/Performer Elly Pond (she/they, 25, Queer) is an actor and artist originally from Guelph, Ontario. They graduated from Concordia’s Acting for the Theatre Program in June 2023 and have been freelancing as an actor, comedian, director, producer, playwright, puppeteer, and photographer for the past five years. Elly has worked with local theaters including Imago Theatre, Repercussion Theatre, Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, Theatre Saint-Catherine, Montreal Improv, Young Hearts Theatre, and Dense & Stage Theatre. They are a festival producer for Bad Dog Theatre and co-founded the award-winning all-femme sketch troupe Tongues. Elly likes to create work about climate justice, the wellness industrial complex, power structures, mysticism, trauma, and queer joy. Hazem Ghaith Writer/Performer Bio: Hazem G. is a Palestinian writer and human rights activist whose work explores themes of displacement, identity, and love. Rooted in storytelling as a tool for liberation, his writing navigates the intersections of queerness, exile, and belonging. Beyond the page, he is deeply engaged in decolonial queer advocacy, particularly in the context of forced migration, working to create dignified and safe spaces for queer communities in the MENA region and beyond. Hiba Sleiman Writer/Performer Hiba is a stage and screen actor and writer. Since her graduation, Hiba has been working as a dramaturg and director for theatre and film between Lebanon and Canada. In Ontario, Hiba collaborated with MT Space and Flush Ink Productions in KW. She was selected for the Emerging Artists Roundtable with Gargantua Theatre in Toronto and worked as an actor with the Major Matt Mason Collective in Calgary. Additionally, she developed a scripted narrative for one of the Canadian Arabic Orchestra’s musical shows and translated Makram Ayache’s published play The Green Line. Currently based in Montreal, Hiba translates works from English/French into Arabic and writes for the stage, the screen as well as poetry in both English and Arabic. She wrote and created several short films and is currently developing her first full-length play with the support of the Canada Arts Council, Explore and Create Program. Lily Chang Writer/Performer Bio: Lily Chang is a writer and director/producer in theatre and film based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. She is a graduate of Concordia University’s MA program in creative writing. Their work has been published by Room Magazine, Frog Hollow Press, HerStry, and Dark Helix Press. She has been a CBC Nonfiction Prize finalist, Nightwood Innovator, and winner of Infinithéâtre’s WoQ Playwriting Competition. For their portfolio, visit lilychang.art. B. Umaia Perlin Writer/Performer B. Umaia Perlin is a biographer and scholar. She produces analogue-only text under the name Ulya Hannad and is currently working as a braille/latin/devanagari translator. This is her first project for the stage. Rachel Renaud Writer/Performer Rachel Renaud is a non-binary writer and actor who has lived and worked in Canada’s three major cities. Their pieces often lean into complex human nuances and uncomfortable topics. Most recently, they’ve written and performed in their award winning short film, Convalescence, and their first full-length play, Love the Sinner, both supported by CCA. They are excited to be developing their second play, try harder: a suicidal puppet tragedy, with Fireworks this season. Instagram – @rachel_renaud and @renopiafilms Rinchen Dolma Writer/Performer རིན་ཆེན་སྒྲོལ་མ་|Rinchen Dolma is a multidisciplinary theatre creator originally from the roof of the world; born in exile in Kathmandu, Nepal. She is primarily based in Tkarón:to (TO) but currently resides in Tiohtià:ke (MTL). She is the founder and Artistic Director of MADE IN EXILE, a grassroots community-arts based initiative that engages young Tibetan creatives in exploring their complex identities through contemporary mediums of storytelling in exile. Rinchen completed her Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Program in Artistic Direction at Theatre Passe Muraille, was part of the 20/21 Foundry cohort at Factory Theatre, completed the 50th edition of The Banff Playwrights Lab in 2023. She is currently the Directing resident at the National Theatre School of Canada.
Alice Siregar Writer/Performer Alice is a local queer woman, daughter of immigrant parents. Similar to her real life, her stories centre queer issues as a way to inform and elicit empathy from the audience towards her community. She previously wrote and performed at the Montreal Fringe Festival with her play Our Next Guest.
Anna Morreale Writer/Performer Anna Morreale is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto and Montreal. Since graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 2021, Anna has been working professionally in the theatre, film and voice acting industries, alongside their writing and producing practices. They are inspired by art that is absurd, surreal, intrepid and accessible.
Lumi Mitton Writer/Performer I am a writer, sculptor, and performer. My forms are almost as varied as my themes, but my specialties are ceramics, poetry, playwriting, clown, and drawing. My work is inspired by a long life of medical disasters, queer tragedies, and my mother. Their core themes are the body, surrealism, ecology, chronic pain, motherhood, and cancer. I have an obsession with trying to heal old wounds. I live in Montreal, but was born and raised in Upper Rexton, NB, on the Richibucto River. My work is deeply rooted in my youth and experiences in Eastern Canada.
Elly Pond Writer/Performer Elly Pond (she/they, 25, Queer) is an actor and artist originally from Guelph, Ontario. They graduated from Concordia’s Acting for the Theatre Program in June 2023 and have been freelancing as an actor, comedian, director, producer, playwright, puppeteer, and photographer for the past five years. Elly has worked with local theaters including Imago Theatre, Repercussion Theatre, Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, Theatre Saint-Catherine, Montreal Improv, Young Hearts Theatre, and Dense & Stage Theatre. They are a festival producer for Bad Dog Theatre and co-founded the award-winning all-femme sketch troupe Tongues. Elly likes to create work about climate justice, the wellness industrial complex, power structures, mysticism, trauma, and queer joy.
Hazem Ghaith Writer/Performer Bio: Hazem G. is a Palestinian writer and human rights activist whose work explores themes of displacement, identity, and love. Rooted in storytelling as a tool for liberation, his writing navigates the intersections of queerness, exile, and belonging. Beyond the page, he is deeply engaged in decolonial queer advocacy, particularly in the context of forced migration, working to create dignified and safe spaces for queer communities in the MENA region and beyond.
Hiba Sleiman Writer/Performer Hiba is a stage and screen actor and writer. Since her graduation, Hiba has been working as a dramaturg and director for theatre and film between Lebanon and Canada. In Ontario, Hiba collaborated with MT Space and Flush Ink Productions in KW. She was selected for the Emerging Artists Roundtable with Gargantua Theatre in Toronto and worked as an actor with the Major Matt Mason Collective in Calgary. Additionally, she developed a scripted narrative for one of the Canadian Arabic Orchestra’s musical shows and translated Makram Ayache’s published play The Green Line. Currently based in Montreal, Hiba translates works from English/French into Arabic and writes for the stage, the screen as well as poetry in both English and Arabic. She wrote and created several short films and is currently developing her first full-length play with the support of the Canada Arts Council, Explore and Create Program.
Lily Chang Writer/Performer Bio: Lily Chang is a writer and director/producer in theatre and film based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. She is a graduate of Concordia University’s MA program in creative writing. Their work has been published by Room Magazine, Frog Hollow Press, HerStry, and Dark Helix Press. She has been a CBC Nonfiction Prize finalist, Nightwood Innovator, and winner of Infinithéâtre’s WoQ Playwriting Competition. For their portfolio, visit lilychang.art.
B. Umaia Perlin Writer/Performer B. Umaia Perlin is a biographer and scholar. She produces analogue-only text under the name Ulya Hannad and is currently working as a braille/latin/devanagari translator. This is her first project for the stage.
Rachel Renaud Writer/Performer Rachel Renaud is a non-binary writer and actor who has lived and worked in Canada’s three major cities. Their pieces often lean into complex human nuances and uncomfortable topics. Most recently, they’ve written and performed in their award winning short film, Convalescence, and their first full-length play, Love the Sinner, both supported by CCA. They are excited to be developing their second play, try harder: a suicidal puppet tragedy, with Fireworks this season. Instagram – @rachel_renaud and @renopiafilms
Rinchen Dolma Writer/Performer རིན་ཆེན་སྒྲོལ་མ་|Rinchen Dolma is a multidisciplinary theatre creator originally from the roof of the world; born in exile in Kathmandu, Nepal. She is primarily based in Tkarón:to (TO) but currently resides in Tiohtià:ke (MTL). She is the founder and Artistic Director of MADE IN EXILE, a grassroots community-arts based initiative that engages young Tibetan creatives in exploring their complex identities through contemporary mediums of storytelling in exile. Rinchen completed her Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Program in Artistic Direction at Theatre Passe Muraille, was part of the 20/21 Foundry cohort at Factory Theatre, completed the 50th edition of The Banff Playwrights Lab in 2023. She is currently the Directing resident at the National Theatre School of Canada.