Making It Up (One Playwright to Another) at Digital Philadelphia Fringe

Norm Reynolds

Norm Reynolds is a Toronto-based playwright and actor. Winner! Best in (Virtual) Venue- based in part on encounters with Edward Albee- "Making It Up (One Playwright to Another)" Hamilton Fringe Festival ‘22’ & slated for Manchester, Vancouver, Watford & Philadelphia Fringe Fests ‘23; adapted Anne Tyler's "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" for the stage. "Gay Positive"- short-listed for the Short & Sweet Festival (Sydney, Australia). "Two-Hander"- Newmarket National Ten Minute Play Festival. A hit at the first Summerworks Festival (CBC Radio, NOW Magazine), "Put Up Your Hand"- performed by the author in Toronto at the Red SandCastle Theatre. "The Good-bye Play"- staged at the Playwrights of Spring Festival and at TheatreStarts (Aurora, Ontario); originally workshopped at the Humber School for Writers with Edward Albee. Reynolds has published short fiction in the United States and Canada, and book reviews in the Canadian national press. He is a thirty year member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada.

Lesley Ballantyne

Lesley Ballantyne (Director) celebrates 47 years in the Canadian entertainment business this year. Her talents have allowed her to work as a director, choreographer, performer, producer, teacher, and arts administrator. Her peripatetic career has taken her across Canada, parts of the US, and as far south as the Bahamas. She is a proud Dora Mavor Moore Award winner, and Jesse Richardson award nominee for On Tap. Lesley is a past Artistic Director of the Muskoka Festival, where she directed and choreographed many of the festival’s main stage and touring productions, many of them original Canadian musicals. She has experienced the joys of performing, directing and choreographing shows in a range of theatres, ranging from small to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Recent projects: Making It Up (One Playwright to Another); Songs of the City (Sony Centre), United Way of Greater Toronto; Co-producer,Voices for World AIDS Day, Casey House; Project Manager, Director/Choreographer The Siminovitch Prize (Hart House Theatre); Director, Put Up Your Hand; Director, Brundibar; Co-Producer, Confessions of an Operatic Mute; and many wonderful and rewarding shows for Smile Theatre. Lesley is a founding member of Well Seasoned Productions (WSP), a registered charity and entertainment production company based in Toronto. WSP creates work based on the joys, challenges, and celebration of life 50 years and better. WellSeasonedProductions.ca

John Bertram

Writer and/or director of over 40 film, video, and stage productions. His independent short films have been aired on CBC, PBS, and TV Ontario, been exhibited by Cineplex Theatres and the Art Gallery of Ontario, and have received awards from the Kodak, C.N.E., U.F.A., WNED-TV, C.I.A.F.F., and Chicago International Film Festivals.