Salamander's Performing & Workshop Artists

William Beddoe

Nicky Brodie

Pixie Cram

Eleanor Crowder, Company Director & Founder
B.A. Hons, Queens; B.Ed., University of Toronto

Eleanor is an actor, director and playwright. She has worked in popular theatre in Canada, Ghana and the Sudan, and is now based in Ottawa. From 1993 to 2001, she was founding Artistic Director of Salamander Theatre, where she developed a comprehensive theatre in education program with a core team of artists. She works with children in schools projects, young people in the Salamander Shakespeare Co. (previously Shakespeare Young Company), the local community in multigenerational productions, and professional actors in developing new work. Her plays tour to 30,000 children each year. Since closing night of the 2003 Shakespeare Young Company season, Eleanor has maintained her always-busy schedule; she is a professor for Algonquin College, played the title role in Brecht’s Mother Courage for Third Wall Theatre, and directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Importance of Being Ernest for the Glebe Neighbourhood Activities Group.  Her plays Tales from the Valley and A World of Stories are two of Salamander's most popular plays that tour annually.  Eleanor has won many awards for her work, notably the 2003 Victor Tolgesy Award for outstanding contribution to the arts in Ottawa.

Nick Di Gaetano

Melannie Eldridge

Kathleen Frost

David Hersh

Chris McLeod, Artistic Director
B.A. Hons, University of Ottawa; M.F.A., University of British Columbia

Chris' first involvement with "serious theatre" was in 1985, when he originated the role of Don Jones in David Carley's Hedges.  He has an Honours in Theatre Directing from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Fine Arts (Theatre Directing) from the University of British Columbia.  He has been seen on stage with Odyssey Theatre's Isabella's Fortune and was Director in Residence for a Company of Fools.  Unfortunately, the Fools still have no residence.  He did manage to direct Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned from Shakespeare, Shakespeare Does the Seven Deadly Sins and Foolius Caesar. Chris has been the Artistic Director of Salamander Theatre since 2001. He is married to a wonderful woman and is the father of two awesome sons.

Emily Pearlman, Performance Creator

Emily is currently the co-artistic director of Mi Casa Theatre, whose award-winning shows Countries Shaped Like Stars and Inclement Weather continue to tour both living rooms in Ottawa and large venues across Canada and Internationally. As a solo artist, her shows Swimming Lessons with Paisley Kite, Radio Collar and Free Range have toured across the country on the Canadian Fringe circuit. She has produced art festivals, created radio documentaries for CBC, hooked up a golden bicycle to an amplifier (so that when you pedal, it plays stories about cycling) and worked in new performance creation with playwrights, poets, dancers, film-makers and sound artists.

She has an MFA in Interdisciplinary Performance Creation from Simon Fraser University and has studied with One Yellow Rabbit in Calgary (performance creation), Karen Hines in Toronto (Bouffon), and at Concordia University. www.micasatheatre.com

Kate Smith
B.A. Acting, Dalhousie University

Kate is a graduate of the Acting Program at Dalhousie University (2006). While studying in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she spent two seasons with Shakespearean repertory company Shakespeare by the Sea, before moving to Ottawa in 2007. Since then she has worked with a number of local companies including A Company of Fools Shakespeare's Interactive Circus, Richard III in Bouffon, Third Wall Theatre Top Girls, SevenThirty Productions Iron, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Evolution Theatre pool (no water), Arabian Night, and Gruppo Rubato Airport Security which premieres Spring 2010, among others. Past roles include Maid Marion The Adventures of Robin Hood, Jessica The Merchant of Venice, Julia The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Josephine Strong Urinetown, and Lady Macduff Macbeth. She appears in one of Salamander Theatre's newest shows, Rhythms of the Sun.

Will Somers

Ian Travis

Emmanuelle Zeesman