Creation Program
Tap into Inspiration and Community with the Creation Program
Our 14 week performance creation program gives 2sLGBTQIA+ gender diverse youth and women (between 18 and 25 years of age) the opportunity to work with some of Toronto’s most exciting artists to create and perform their own original creative work. We are thrilled to be supported by TAPA and The Paprika Festival for the 2026 Creation Program.
On Monday (and some Wednesday) evenings from 6:00pm-9:15pm from February 23rd-May 20th, the group of participants, lead by program directors Bessie Cheng and Celia Green, will meet weekly to practice writing, creation, movement and performance in order to create their own performance pieces that are then woven together as presented as a work-in-progress performance as part of the 2026 Paprika Festival.
- Dinner at the beginning of every session so that you’re creating on a full tummy
- TTC fare to get you to and from every rehearsal
- Several one-on-one mentorship sessions from a Toronto artist working in live performance who is available to support & encourage you
- Training and support in writing, movement and performance creation from Bessie Cheng and Celia Green
- Receive professional headshots
- Workshops from Guest Artists (artist names to be announced at a later date)
- A free ticket to both The Herald by Jill Connell, & Kainchee Lagaa + Jhooti : The Begging Brown Bitch Plays by Zaiba Baig
- At the end of the program – a chance to perform your original work on-stage in front of an audience in a safe environment that fosters experimentation
- A chance to make new friends and build a supportive, fun, and creative community 😀
Partner with a Mentor
Each participant is paired with a professional artist mentor who will guide and support them throughout the program.
learn from professionals
Collaborating with a team of professional directors and guest artists, participants will create their own performance pieces.
Perform your piece
After nine weeks, participants will see their pieces come to life and perform their work on stage at Theatre Passe Muraille.
Proudly supported by
Meet Our Team
Sebastian Urmom
Mentored by Najla Nubyanluv
Inspired by the privilege to play, Sebastian Urmom not only uses all the pronouns that your mama gave they/she/him last night, but is from the borough where all of the cuties come from… Scarborough! Story telling accomplishments include the Amplified Triology(2020-2022,) Seb’s PLAYPEN (2023-2025,) At the Dinner Table (Vuka, TPM, 2023,) and Please Feel My Hair (ECU, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 2024.)
Sebastians over all dream is to be able to create for ancestors that could not, and invite as many dreamers into their ritual of creation as possible.
If you want to find Sebastian, and stay up to date with their Queer Chaos follow them on instagram @sebastianurmom.
Inès Alibay
Mentored by Merlin Simard
Inès Alibay (She/Her) is a performer from France now based out of Toronto. She is currently finishing her Bachelor of Arts in Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. She has made her theatre debut in 71 (Victoria College Drama Society) and will be part of the AMY Project Workshop sharing at Paprika Festival. She is looking forward to build community and explore different ways of creating through the AMY program.
Mackenzie Saliola
Mentored by Alicia Richardson
Mackenzie Saliola is a black, queer theatre artist based in Toronto, Ontario. Having graduated York University’s Theatre Program, she is focused on taking the next step in learning and working at the industry level. Mackenzie has dedicated her time to learn many disciplines in theatre with a special focus on production and writing. She recently participated in the Climate Play Workshop with Native Earth and was a Production Assistant for Guild Festival Theatre. Giving back to the community through the arts is invaluable to her. She would like to thank everyone involved in The AMY Project for their artistic support. A special thanks to Alicia Richardson for her mentorship and unwavering push for Mackenzie’s growth.
Dylan Coley
Mentored by Bria
Dylan Coley (he/him) is an artist based out of Toronto. He is a writer, director, and performer working in both contemporary and historical theatre. He works frequently with PLS, an early drama production company that focuses on staging real medieval and pre-modern dramatic texts and translations. He has worked with PLS as an actor and as an assistant director in productions such as York Cycle 2025 Plays, Lusty Juventus, and Strongman and The Soul and Body. He is currently working on upcoming projects such as The Fox and the Wolf (PLS) and The AMY Project Workshop sharing at Paprika Festival. He also writes his own plays and performance pieces, aiming to bring his experience with pre-modern plays into a modern context while giving voice to his own experiences and concerns as a young transgender person living today. In his spare time he likes to play the bass, and makes use of his storytelling abilities by running TTRPGs for his friends.
shelly seo bahng
Mentored by Angela Sun
shelly seo bahng (she/they) is a queer writer, filmmaker, translator, facilitator and mystic born in Korea and based in Toronto. Their first short film on being an immigrant in her youth, 면치기 Hitting the noodles, was presented at Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. Her work is dedicated to exploring the feeling of unbelonging, both in one’s own body and existing in spaces.
Macarena Coronado Harman
Mentored by Augusto Bitter
Macarena Coronado Harman is a Peruvian performer, director, and multidisciplinary theatre artist based in Tkaronto. Weaving together her love for dance, design, and theatre, her neurodivergence, and her political science degree, Macarena aspires to make art that is expressive and revealing in all senses. Deeply passionate about the intersection between social justice, equity, and the arts, she is adamant in bringing attention to diverse political and social realities through her work, while also experimenting with structure and different forms of storytelling.
Past work includes “…! (The Balloon Show)”, an experimental movement piece she co-created and performed in at the 2025 Paprika Festival, alongside 3 amazing collaborators (the P.O.Ps!), and joyously working as an artistic intern at Theatre Gargantua for their production of “Dissonant Species”! Most recently, Macarena also presented an original movement piece at the 2026 Rhubarb Festival titled “¿Y si me ven? / If they see me?”, exploring neurodivergence, masking, and navigating a world with a mask that can often consume you.
Cora Czerny Trần
Mentored by Emily Jung
Cora Czerny Trần (they / she) is a storyteller. They were born in Belleville, and moved to Toronto to attend TMU for dance. Through TMU, they were able to refine other performance skills. They are a self-described double-and-a-half threat. She dances, acts, and can carry a tune well enough. She took an unavoidable hiatus from dance, and was unable to complete her degree. This hiatus allowed them to expand their creative practice beyond dance. She has experimented with photography, videography, painting, writing, ceramics, crochet, and knitting. Returning to the stage, they participated in The AMY Project in 2026.
In Belleville, Cora attended the Quinte Ballet School of Canada. Then, she became a competitive dancer and won awards nationally with the Quinte Elite Dance Team. She performed and choreographed in musicals, including Annie Get Your Gun with the Belleville Theatre Guild. More recently, in Toronto, they performed in the dance film Women of the Wild (Confluence). Her upcoming works include a series of large-scale crochet tapestries, The AMY Project Workshop sharing at Paprika Festival, and a zine named Lewd.
She is creatively inspired by taboo, identity, and history. Existentialism, abstraction, and eroticism are throughlines in many of their pieces. As a disabled queer person, those themes are as common in her life as they are in her work. She is an advocate for diversity and accessibility in the performing arts. They spend their free time reading, caring for their loved ones, and baking. You can contact her at coraczernytran@gmail.com to get in touch.
Augusto Bitter
Mentee: Macarena Coronado Harman
Augusto Bitter is a Venezuelan-born, Dora Award-winning actor and writer for stage and screen based in Toronto. Select film/TV/theatre credits include: Billy the Kid (MGM+), Star Trek: Section 31 (Paramount+), Hudson & Rex (CityTV), Hotel for the Holidays (Amazon), Coroner (CBC), Craze (Tarragon), The Monument (Factory), Anywhere But Here (Electric Company Theatre), CHICHO (TPM/Pencil Kit Productions), and Lear (Groundling Theatre Co.) Augusto’s work spans theatre, animated series, and films developed in-residence at the Canadian Film Centre, Reelworld Screen Institute, Canadian Stage, Factory, Aluna Theatre, TPM, and the city of Toronto. He has also been an educator with Soulpepper, Paprika Festival, Story Planet, and Project: Humanity. Augusto’s love language is food. www.augustobitter.com
Favourite AMY Memory or admiration: Seeing new work start at AMY and grow into a full production years later🙂
Alicia Richardson
Mentee: Mackenzie Saliola
Alicia Richardson is an actor-writer who hails from Boynton Beach, Florida. She came to Canada for the affordable tuition, then she got health care and figured…why fight it? In 2013, she graduated from York University’s MFA Acting & Diploma of Voice Teaching Programs. Now a Permanent Resident, she’s livin’ that sweet (but sometimes sour) artist’s life in Toronto. Her body of work spans theatre, television, film, and voice-over. As playwright, her credits include Articulation, Solve for X, Sweeter (nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play: Theatre for Young Audiences Division, 2024), and Brown Eyes: a New Musical. Alicia has developed works through artistic residencies with Obsidian Theatre Company, Driftwood Theatre Group, Young People’s Theatre, Cahoots Theatre Company, and Bcurrent Performing Arts Company. Follow her tasty, multihyphenate adventures on social @leesheelovesyou
Favourite AMY Memory or admiration: I love the idea of “sending the ladder back down” so to speak. I’m a big fan of helping pave the way for emerging artists.
Merlin Simard
Mentee: Inès Alibay
Merlin Simard (she/elle) is a performer, playwright, dramaturge, and screenwriter originally from Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal), now based in Tkarón:to (Toronto). As a performer, Merlin has worked with Factory Theatre, Crow’s, Outside The March, Buddies In Bad Times, Talk is Free, Toronto Dance Theatre, Studio 180 Théâtre Français de Toronto, and many other theatre companies across Canada. She has also acted on Grand Army (Netflix) and This Life (CBC), as well as in the short film Poils Anyways (Fittonia Inc.), which she also wrote. Merlin is currently the Associate Dramaturge at Theatre Passe Muraille and the facilitator for Paprika’s Playwright’s Unit. She is developing several projects spanning across theatre, TV, and VR in both English and French. Her practice focuses on themes of access, gender euphoria, technology, and multilingual performance. @hussy4hussy | merlinsimard.com
Favourite AMY Memory or admiration: Eating dinner with everyone!
Bria
Mentee: Dylan Coley
Bria thinks a lot and talks too fast. They began as a 2nd generation Jamaican, Trans, Capricorn. He began his career as an actor working and touring professionally. Since graduating TMU Theatre in 2015, they have gone on to earn two Dora Nominations and perform across Canada. As a graduate of Humber’s Television Writing in 2020 and Producing Program, he has had the privilege of working in writers rooms for New Metric Media, Sphere Media and CBC as a Story Editor and Consultant.Thank you to the AMY Project team for allowing me to be a part for this year’s program. Looking forward to meeting, working with, and learning from our next generation of artists.
Favourite AMY Memory or admiration: Something I admire about AMY project is the straight line it creates for the artists we need to access themselves and their craft. Transport, food, time. Five, ten years ago Theatre training was heavily rooted in either scarcity and intensity. It doesn’t need to be. I think this program encourages and teaches young artists to approach their work in a healthy and sustainable way. With curiosity, with play, with vulnerability and with care and respect for self and others. Love that.
Emily Jung
Mentee: Cora Czerny Trân
Emily Jung (she/her) is a Korean-Canadian artist and arts worker working with themes around labour (and rest), multilingual arts, social media, hauntology, and eco-dramaturgy. She is a recipient of the 2023 Dora Award in Projection Design and the Artist Award for Excellence in the Labour Movement at the Mayworks Festival of Labour and the Arts (2024, co-recipient Amanda Lin).
Favourite AMY Memory or admiration: I had such a fun time at Fat Fables last year!
Najla Nubyanluv
Mentee: Sebastian Urmom
A three time graduate of The Watah Theatre, alumni of bcurrent’s mandiela rAiz’n in the Sun ensemble and ThisGen fellow, Najla Nubyanluv is a queer, Black mother, multi-disciplinary artist, author, dramaturg, producer, educator, and doula. Her passion for joy-filled futures and living dreams has driven her 20 years of community work, mentorship and professional arts practice. She is a member of The Walking Griot collective coming off of an award winning run at The Toronto Fringe(2025) as ‘La Diablesse’ and ‘Grandma Clarisse’ in Lulu, and an avid lover of dynamic stories and belly laughter. Nubyalnuv teaches community and post secondary Theatre and is currently developing her newest play Through the Middle: A Musical Afrofuturist Odyssey.
Favourite AMY memory or admiration: One of my fave AMY memories is coming back years later to work with Jules and Morgan, past AMY participants. It’s incredible to see how they cultivate unique, inclusive programming and space that welcomes and supports participants.
Angela Sun
Mentee: shelly seo bahng
Angela Sun (She/ Her) is a Mad, Disabled, plus-size, first generation/ settler actor, theatre artist, producer, equity consultant, educator, and arts administrator of East Asian descent. Her multidisciplinary, multilingual artistic practice focuses on cultural dissonance and mental health. She is also known for her advocacy for cultural diversity, size inclusivity, and Disability Justice.
In her decade-plus career, Angela has worked with many arts organizations and theatre companies, including: Cahoots Theatre, Crossroads Theatre (previously Shakespeare In Action), Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO), Durham Art Gallery, Factory Theatre, Gardiner Museum, Museum of Toronto (previously Myseum of Toronto), Nightwood Theatre, Paprika Festival, Political Movement, Reel Asian Film Festival, ReDefine Arts, SummerWorks Festival, The Bentway, and The Toronto Fringe. She has written for CBC Arts and Mooney On Theatre, and has been engaged as a panelist/ speaker/ facilitator by Artists Legal Advice Services, Assembly Theatre, Generator, Labour in the Arts, National Theatre School, Ontario Presents, Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, and The Neighbourhood Organization. She has served as an adjudicator/ juror for the Dora Mavor Moore Awards, NTS DramaFest, and the Toronto Arts Council.
She is currently the Community Engagement Manager at Theatre Passe Muraille, and also serves on Workman Arts’ Member Advisory Council and on the Board of The Disability Collective. She is one of the founding members of the Madville Collective. She received the Patrick Conner Ticket Award in 2023.
You can see her next in Season 2 of The Squeaky Wheel: Canada on AMI.
Favourite AMY Memory or admiration: A program like The AMY Project is absolutely critical to the development of our artistic communities and I wish I had taken part in a program like this when I was a younger artist. I am so excited to be asked to be a mentor this year and I can’t wait to both support but also learn from the wonderful artists at AMY.
Bessie Cheng
Program Director
Bessie Cheng is an award winning queer Chinese-Canadian writer and actor. She graduated from the Playwriting and Devised Theatre program at York University. Her first play received an award from the Ontario Arts Foundation and was nominated for the RBC Emerging Playwright Award from Playwrights Guild of Canada. Bessie’s is named one of 30 theatre-makers that will help shape the next 30 years in Canadian theatre.
They have also worked with companies including Stratford, Soulpepper, Tarragon, Factory, Cahoots, fu-GEN, Theatre Direct, and Studio 180.Bessie is a co-founder of Silk Bath Collective, an ad-hoc theatre group with a focus on telling Chinese-Canadian stories. Most recently, they premiered Woking Phoenix and won the Audience Choice Awards at the Dora’s in 2024. They are currently prepping for a tour across Canada in 2027.
Celia Green
Program Director
Celia Green’s practice includes choreography, direction, writing, performance, and facilitation. They create highly physical, intimate performances that explore bodily sensation, mess, and the pursuit of freedom. Grounded in care and rigor, their collaborative practice and creations draw on their experiences as a queer, trans-masculine person and their background in care work with children and families. Celia’s work has been presented by OFFTA, The SummerWorks Festival, English Theatre Berlin, the Toronto Dance Love-In, and The Rhubarb Festival. Most recently they presented their solo, Jason, at OFFTA and the SummerWorks Festival. They are thrilled to be returning to The AMY Project for another year.
Jake Runeckles
Food Program Coordinator
Program Dates and Deadlines
Our Program Offers Many Exciting Perks
What We’ve Created
Every year, the Creation Program connects emerging youth performance artists and experienced professionals in the field to create art that moves and mobilizes. Take a glimpse into our previous work.