My artistic practice is rooted in documentary and autobiographical solo performance, in the tradition of Spalding Gray and Mike Daisey. In 2010, I was arrested and detained in a makeshift cage during the G20 summit in Toronto — the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. That experience became You Should Have Stayed Home, a solo show that won the RBC Arts Professional Award, became one of the highest-grossing shows at SummerWorks 2011, and toured nationally through Whitehorse, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, produced by Praxis Theatre with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Council of Canadians, and Amnesty International. The original testimony was translated into seven languages and read in twenty-one countries. It inspired a Gemini-nominated CBC documentary.

In 2022, the show was adapted into virtual reality with director Michael Wheeler and dramaturg Laura Levin. Presented at FOLDA, PXR Festival (Paris), and XR Live! Festival. The VR production generated peer-reviewed publications at ACM CHI PLAY ’22 and ACM CHI ’24, a Canadian Theatre Review article, and was part of York University’s Hemispheric Encounters research project.

Before the G20, I spent nearly a decade as Managing Director of Forward Theatre, directing Shakespeare at Mississauga’s Living Arts Centre. I directed the Critics Pick Kayak at SummerWorks 2010 (featuring Rosemary Dunsmore), won the InspiraTO 24-Hour Playwriting Competition, and developed work at Canadian Stage, Theatre Passe Muraille, and Young People’s Theatre. I’m a graduate of Vancouver Film School; my film/TV credits include CBC’s Coroner (the writers wrote me into the episode, which I consulted on, to play myself) and MuchMusic/CTV.

When the pandemic hit, I was working frontline overnight shifts in Toronto’s shelter system. Those shifts became the foundation for You Should Have Stayed Home Too, now in development with dramaturgy by Karen Ancheta and Anand Rajaram, developed at Theatre Aquarius Brave New Works Festival 2024.

My advocacy runs parallel. I served as a Community Consultant and Research & Policy Lead for SafeTO, Toronto’s Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. I co-founded pandemic campaigns through the Shelter & Housing Justice Network and Health Providers Against Poverty — surveying 22 shelter sites, coordinating open letters from 300+ doctors, and leading direct action against encampment evictions. My court affidavit documenting shelter conditions was cited in the 2020 Ontario Superior Court case against the City of Toronto. I was also the lead plaintiff on the 10-year long G20 Class Action Lawsuit, which was ultimately successful and stands as a landmark case in Canada in regards to civil liberties and police overreach.

I’ve held management roles at the Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre and the Toronto Drop-In Network. I served as a Constituency and Legislative Assistant at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. I have spent over a decade as a frontline worker in shelters, street outreach and other homelessness services. In 2015, I ran as a federal election candidate. Most recently, I completed research and published the a report on frontline perspectives on the causes of food insecurity in Hamilton.