Alex is a bilingual actor, director and teacher in Montreal. He co-founded Porte Parole theatre with his wife, playwright Annabel Soutar in 2000 to explore through theatre the role of the citizen in today’s society. Alex has always been interested in what creates a shift in an individual and how that then shapes the direction and values of the society, and vice-versa, of course. Using a documentary approach, Alex has participated in creating plays through interviewing citizens on a given issue, and then staging the collected language. Alex has always been fascinated by how revealing a person’s language is if we give ourselves the chance to listen. The Theatre is a curated opportunity to listen together and it has been Alex’s teacher for the last 20 years. The Water Shed aims to be a similar but more intimate listening space, for us to commune, one at a time over water. Alex worked on stages across Canada including three visits to the national Arts Centre in Ottawa, and as far away as Mexico and Belgium. In film, he acted in the films Mirror Mirror with Nathan Lane and Julia Roberts, in 300 with Gerard Butler, in X-men Days of Future Past with Jennifer Lawrence, and in Histoires d’hiver for which he received a Genie nomination for best supporting actor. Alex also helps create characters for video games like Assassins Creed, Deus Ex, Outlast and Splinter Cell. As a teacher, Alex taught drama part time for 15 years at Selwyn House school in Montreal. Alex lives in Montreal with Annabel and his two daughters Ella and Beatrice.

Annabel Soutar is a playwright and theatre producer. In 2000 she founded the theatre company Porte Parole Productions in Montreal with actor Alex Ivanovici and she has acted as Artistic Director of the Company since its inception.

Porte Parole curates creative conversations about hot contemporary social issues – conversations that bring people with different ideological, professional and cultural perspectives into the same space. The Company’s recent acclaimed productions – both written by Annabel – Seeds and Sexy béton – have toured throughout Canada and Quebec.

In 2012 Annabel was commissioned with Director Chris Abraham of Crow’s Theatre in Toronto to write a new documentary play about fresh water for the 2015 Toronto Pan American/Para Pan American Games cultural program - PANAMANIA - (Creative Director, Don Shipley). That play, The Watershed, will première at the Berkeley Street Theatre (Canadian Stage) in Toronto during the Games in July 2015. Annabel lives in Montreal with Alex and their two daughters Ella and Beatrice.

elle thoni was spat from the mouth of the Mississippi River.

She now finds her flow as a playwright, performance-maker and teaching artist. elle is constantly interrogating how theatre can be the thin membrane between art and society: a live, communal art form that is happening in the NOW in every sense of the word. Her work is highly informed by third-wave feminism, queerness, climate change and cultural resilience dialogues. elle graduated from Augsburg College with a self-designed BA in Theatre for Social Change, and completed NYU Tisch’s Performance for Social Change program in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has received training from In the Heart of the Beast, Handspring Puppet Company & Jana Sanskriti, among others.

Après des études en Histoire de l’Art et en scénographie à l’École Nationale de Théâtre du Canada. Jasmine Catudal travaille comme scénographe dans le milieu du théâtre, de la danse, de l’opéra et du cirque. Elle travaille auprès de nombreux metteurs en scène réputés, signe entre autres la scénographie de l’Opéra The Tempest de Thomas Ades, m.e.s Robert Lepage, Co-Production de Ex Machina et du Meropolitan Opéra.

Nourrie par ces expériences artistiques et habitée par l’envie de faire cohabiter les différentes formes d’art dans un même projet, elle cofonde en 2007 l’OFFTA. À travers cet événement, elle désire provoquer des rencontres favorisant l’émergence de nouveaux talents et le décloisonnement des disciplines artistiques tout en présentant les artistes phares de sa génération. Son expérience à l’OFFTA lui donne une vue d’ensemble unique sur la jeune création québécoise. Depuis 2012, elle est co-directrice artistique de l’Usine C ou elle est responsable de la programmation nationale.

Diplômé du volet production de l'école national de théâtre du Canada, il travail sur différents projets à titre de concepteurs sonores, régisseurs, assistant metteur en scène et directeur technique. Il a collaboré avec de nombreux metteurs en scène dans plusieurs théâtre montréalais. Il travail également en danse et en musique, notamment comme directeur technique pour Kid Koala. Watershed est sa deuxième collaboration avec le théâtre Porte Parole.

Isabella Donati-Simmons is currently pursuing a BFA in Theatre and Development at Concordia University in Montreal. She is part of the Water Shed project as an intern. Her interests lie in theatre’s capacity to affect social change and develop community. She is also passionate about bringing art into the everyday lives of Canadians in a meaningful way. Growing up on the Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, political issues of water and our relationship with it are very close to her. To her, the Water Shed project is an opportunity to connect performance and art with personal and social growth in our interactions with and use of water.