Artistic Director: Joan Chandler

Associate Producer / Artist: David Sereda

Our head office is located in rural Ontario, near Wiarton.

We Make House Calls! -- Have Skills - Will Travel!

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JOAN CHANDLER - Founding Artistic Director, Producer, Playwright, Workshop Facilitator

Producer, director, writer, arts educator and workshop facilitator, Joan Chandler is the founding Artistic Director of Sheatre. She has led the collective creation of 100 plays across Ontario and abroad, reaching audiences of about 78,400 primarily reaching under-served audiences in rural and small urban environments. Joan has a keen ability to work with groups, collaboratively spinning new plays with, by and about their own stories and concerns. Her work is always rooted in community partnerships. 

Joan is committed to the vision of vibrant people engaged together in the creation of works that voice deep challenges and the love of life, and that call upon others to participate in making positive social change.   Her work celebrates our shared heritage and expresses the visceral core of human issues. She is recognized as a humble, kind-hearted, strong and intuitively creative individual.

Joan is an eight-time recipient of the Ontario Arts Council’s Artiists in Education award.   She created the first known modern use of theatre as a tool for lobbying government, influencing Augusto Boal’s creation of Legislative Theatre, and is featured in Playing Boal: Theatre & Therapy (New York: Routledge, 1994). Playwright of  Far From the Heart (FFTH), her award-winning dating violence prevention program teaching teens about sexual assault, rape, drinking and safe relationships has been presented live to over 14,000 youth in Ontario and Saskatchewan between 2006 - 2012.  It has been released online and received multiple awards as an innovative interactive film on the website www.farfromtheheart.com. 

Joan has extensive experience as an administrator.  As well as being the managing director of Sheatre, she has served as General Manager for Mixed Company (Toronto), Coordinator of the Grey/Bruce Labour Council’s Labour Arts Action Network and the Anti-Racism and Discrimination Alliance Grey-Bruce.  She has been on many steering committees including as founding member of Theatre Ontario’s ASTRO.  Joan served as Board Chair for the Women’s Centre Grey Bruce, and has been a Board Member with The Blyth Festival, Women Today, and other organizations.  She coordinated BILLY BISHOP HERITAGE DAY MILITARY AND AVIATION FESTIVAL, WOMENFOLK FESTIVAL of arts and culture, and BREAD & BUTTER / DU PAIN SUR LA PLANCHE POPULAR THEATRE FESTIVAL.

Credits include:   FAR FROM THE HEART ; the 5-part audio drama series about senior abuse in aboriginal communities,  MISHOO MIINWAA NOKI ~ YOU, ME AND WRINKLES;  TOM, musical theatre play celebrating artist Tom Thomson;  PTERODACTYL DELIGHT, an English/Ojibwe children’s play about aboriginal cultural rights; HERE TODAY, GONE THIS AFTERNOON, theatre forum play with music about unemployment and suicide; THE BALLAD OF KENNEDY’S musical play about a foundry and its founding family; SHELTER ME, forum theatre play and a film documentary about the power of popular theatre. 

Academic Credits include:
University of Waterloo - B.A., M.A. 
ScreenwritingU - ProSeries Alumnus
Robert McKee's Story seminar - graduate

Awards and Recognition:
Inaugural Phil Hartman Arts and Humanitarian Award
City of Owen Sound Cultural Award for Theatre 2010, presented to Sheatre
Featured in the book Playing Boal: Theatre and Therapy, (New York; Routledge, 1994)
Ontario Arts Council, Artists in Education award- 8 times
Representated Ontario as a cultural ambassador to the UK in community arts field 

Soul Cages (screenplay)
Best Original Screenplay, The International Film Festival Ireland
Finalist, Original Screenplay, Fantastic Planet Film Festival, Sydney, Australia
Honourable Mention: Script, The Los Angeles Reel Film Festival

About Far From the Heart: 
“The scenario, the dialogue, the action, could all have ‘viewer discretion advised’ warnings, but that’s the point. It makes you squirm in your seat. It makes you think.” The Meaford Express

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DAVID SEREDA

david sereda has over 30 years of experience and a national reputation as theatre artist, singer/songwriter, composer and producer. He has worked with Sheatre and Joan Chandler for ten years: on Brush workshops in community and in schools, co-writing the musicals TOM and Snow Wonder and leading music theatre workshops to build those projects.

As a singer/songwriter, he has performed at major festivals and concert halls across Canada, and has been guest soloist with notable choirs as the Nova Scotia Mass Choir, Montreal Jubilation Choir and the Vancouver Men's Chorus. He has released three albums on his indie label Rocky Wednesday Records. Author Michael Ondaatje said: "david sereda sings like an angel and writes like a sinner."
He is a seasoned collaborator on new music theatre productions. He was nominated for a Dora Award for best musical (Love Jive, book by Don Hannah, music, lyrics and music direction by sereda, Tarragon). Other music direction includes Last Call! (Belfry, Victoria), Songs of a Prairie Girl (U. of Sask., Saskatoon and the Prairie Scene at NAC, Ottawa), The Dressing Gown (Buddies in Bad Times), The Destruction of Eve (Company of Sirens, Toronto and School of the Arts, McMaster U, Hamilton) and The Snow Queen: A Public Dream (director Paula Jardine, Public Dreams Co., Edmonton). Most recently he led music workshops in Owen Sound, ON for a new musical, A Desperate Road to Freedom (inspired by Karleen Bradford's novel about Freedom Seekers on the Underground Railroad).

In addition to work as Sheatre's associate artist, sereda led songwriting workshops for Workman Arts (Toronto), worked with youth in Hamilton to write and perform an original opera (Strathcona Community Opera Project, Opera Hamilton), led community choral workshops for New Dance Horizons (Regina, SK), collaborated with choreographers on new works with students in Toronto (National Ballet's Creating Dances in the Schools), and managed and co-led the songwriting and recording project Where were the Mothers? in Regina schools (for Michele Sereda, UMBRA, with video artist Linda Duvall and composer Ramses Calderon).

As a producer and administrator, david has helped organize successful school tours and post-show facilitators for Far From the Heart (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012) in Saskatchewan and Ontario, and is working on the inaugural tour of Loin du Coeur (Spring 2013, N. Ontario). He also served as Communications & Outreach Officer for the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance (2011). Since 1991, he is producer and host of over 40 Stray Dog Salons, exuberant evenings of music, poetry and theatre in Toronto. david is based in St. Catharines, Ontario.

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Lauren Best

Lauren Best has been involved with Sheatre since she was 15 years old.  She was a participant in the seed group for the pilot project of Far From the Heart. Under professional direction from Joan Chandler and Simon Malbogat, teens from Grey-Bruce collectively created the initial production then performed it in several local high schools including a televised performance. Lauren continued to be involved with Sheatre as she completed high school: acting, singing and dancing in the chorus of Tom: A New Musical, and as a youth advisor to the Far From The Heart team. In her work with Sheatre as youth outreach consultant, volunteer coordinator, and communications officer, she continued to work closely with Far From the Heart as it has blossomed from a unique local effort into an inter-provincially touring play translated into French, and a innovative web-based interactive film. Lauren has also designed workshops using the Far From the Heart interactive film to educate teens about dating violence and sexual assault, and delivered these workshops in a wide variety of settings, including for street-involved youth, rural secondary students with learning disabilities, and girls recovering from serious addiction.

Lauren has completed the Artist-Educator Professional Training program at the Royal Conservatory of Music and is on the RCM’s Learning Through The Arts artist roster. She has designed and delivered workshops for both elementary and secondary students in the areas of songwriting, poetry, and vocal technique. Lauren teaches piano, voice, theory, and songwriting to a diverse clientele ages 4 to adult in both studio and in-home settings, as well as teaching preschool music classes and school-age music and arts programs.

Lauren has been singing since she could talk and songwriting since elementary school. She made her big-stage debut at age 7 with the legendary Salome Bey, which kicked off Lauren's good fortune of working with seasoned professionals that helped shape her musical intuition. Lauren began recording her self-produced debut album, Sticker Collection, while she was still in high school. It featured over 20 session musicians and 5 arrangers and has since been heard coast to coast on CBC Radio 1 and Radio 2. As a musician and singer-songwriter Lauren has toured in both solo and band configurations, including playing at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and Summerfolk. As a keyboardist she has played with Girl + the Machine (Aporia Records in Canada, Iseed Music in Asia) as well as numerous performance and recording guest appearances. Additionally, Lauren has been a vocalist in The Element Choir (an experimental improvising choir), including recording for The Element Choir's debut release (At Rosedale United, Barnyard Records).