Hi, we're the Purple Team at Purple Carrots Drama Studio!
With the help from a successful KickStarter project, she created APexat; her personal operation as an Expressive Arts Therapist, while she continued her education at The CREATE Institute, after graduating from Brock University with a BA (Hons) in Drama in Education and Society.
She has been a featured guest during Brock University Students Union’s Wellness Week program (2014-2017) – providing open Arts Therapy group sessions to students during exam season, York University’s Mental Health Initiative – Love Fest 2015, the York University’s Psychology Students’ Association, and the Turn Around Project. She has also guest-lectured at Brock University and Fieldstone King’s College School. Additionally, she has provided programming at The RAFT, alongside Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects.
Alana has provided Expressive Arts Therapy sessions and facilitated Arts and Life Skills workshops with Hospice Toronto, the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT), Better Living Health and Community Services, Bridgepoint Active Healthcare, and Soldiers of Creation. She has worked alongside populations experiencing life-altering situations, grief and bereavement, transition, living in palliative & hospice care, managing stress, as well as, simply coping with the struggles of everyday life.
She served 3 years as Treasurer for the Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association (soon-to-be The Canadian Expressive Arts Therapies Association) and is a professional member in good-standing.
In January 2020, Alana joined the Expressive Arts facilitation team at Mohawk College as a Post-Secondary Professor; educating students on the topic of integrating Expressive Arts into treatment for those living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. And starting September 2021, she will be facilitating the course Movement: Applications for Education & Theatre in the Dramatic Arts department, at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts (Brock University).
Her goal is to educate & provide Expressive Arts Therapy to anyone willing to play, share, and explore!
As he works towards finding a permanent teaching position at TDSB, Purple Carrots has given him a chance to continue to grow as a creator and educator while working and playing with students of all ability levels.
He's extremely grateful that the Purple Carrots community has welcomed him with open arms and will continue to bring his own sense of fun, wonder, and humour to every workshop he teaches and assists!!
Michaela hails from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, where she worked for two seasons as an actor with the Shaw Festival Theatre. She had the joy of growing up with the theatre community and learning life lessons such as self expression, body awareness and active listening. Michaela completed her BA from the University of Toronto in English, Drama and Music, with an emphasis on musicology and community health. She is a certified yoga teacher and sound therapy practitioner offering regular yoga classes, sound baths, and community wellness gatherings across Toronto for youth, elders, and everyone in between.
Michaela believes all humans have a unique gift and story to tell. She is so happy to be a part of the Purple Carrots Drama Studio team, supporting the development of inclusive spaces where everyone is welcomed to unleash their innate super powers within a safe and supportive community circle.
In 2021 Georgia received a capital grant from the federal government of Canada as part of the SBCCI (Support Black Canadian Communities Initiative) and will lead an art as therapy project serving ACB (African, Black, Caribbean) folks living with AIDS and HIV. Beginning October 2021, Georgia will be the artist in residence at Station Gallery and develop an expressive arts therapy program into the gallery space. Georgia is a professional member in good standing with The Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association (OEATA) and the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA). She continues to support those who seek to keep living artfully.
Her love of teaching children was sparked in her teens when she began teaching at her dance studio in Barrie, ON. Alicia deepened her relationship with movement, choreography and pedagogy at York University where she earned her BFA in Dance in 2006. Between 2003 and 2011 she produced/co-produced and choreographed seven multidisciplinary performances in Toronto, including the dance/theatre production of an original feminist fairy tale called “Ella and the Rat” (2011).
After university Alicia coupled her penchant for teaching with her desire to travel, spending two years as an ESL teacher in South Korea, where she infused her lessons with dance, music and play. Her belief in the transformative and healing power of the arts led her to study Drama Therapy at Concordia University and earn her Master’s degree in 2016.
Alicia is thrilled to be a part of the Purple Carrots team, where she continues to witness the power of using the creative arts as a platform for learning, self expression, and human connection.
He is the founder and Artistic Director of The Purple Stage, an initiative which gives Purple Carrots alumni a paid professional theatre experience.
Jordan is a performance creator working in theatre, dance, drag and interactive experiences. He is half of the POP ART performance duo xLq, creating interactive theatrical playgrounds with a queer pop aesthetic. Jordan also creates dance-fashion films, and his latest project, PARTYPEOPLE, brings nightlife performance to public parks in a distanced experience for small audiences.
Some of Eliza’s favourite acting credits include: Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Isabella in The Changeling (Shakespeare BASH’d), Molly in Peter and The Starcatcher (LOT), Hedvig in Wild Duck Project (Re:Current Theatre), Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest (Hart House Theatre), Hellena in The Rover, Mary Warren in The Crucible (Theatre Erindale), u/s Louise in Gypsy (Hangar Theatre), Emily in Bodies, and Patricia in Hiding Like Elephants (Hangar Wedge Series).
In her off-stage life, Eliza works in children's mental health and teaches creative workshops around the city. Her first children's novel Harvey and the Extraordinary (Annick Press) based on her play of the same name, will hit bookshelves November 2021.
Eliza offers creative skill-building and therapeutic services through Purple Carrots Counselling.
She is an enthusiast of theatre, aerial skills, attempting to be musical, laughter, the outside, magic, all things 80's, and making stuff with her hands. She is a camp girl at heart having worked and attended both Camp Gay Venture and Camp Oconto.
A proud Slytherin and believer that, though the world is a big place, it is the stories we share with strangers we meet that make it seem small. When Steph is not working as an actor or educator she is the proud co-producer and host of Girl Gang Cabarets; an unboxed and/or feminist variety show.