When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a party animal…
Lisa Marie took the helm of Theatre Direct as Executive Artistic Director in 2019. She is also the founder and lead advisor for Theatre Direct’s national initiative Balancing Act Canada which supports parents and caregivers in the performing arts. In 2023, Lisa served as co-Curator for JUNIOR at Harbourfront Centre – Canada’s largest international children’s festival.
Lisa Marie is the founding Artistic Director of FIXT POINT, where she led the creation and production of The Tale of a Town – Canada. Between 2014-2017, this theatre and media project toured to every province and territory in Canada gathering more than 3,000 stories through interviews in over 200 communities resulting in the creation of over 30 site-specific performances developed in collaboration with local professional artists including presentations at Theatre Passe Muraille (ON), The Fredericton Playhouse (NB), The Northern Arts Cultural Centre (NT), The Yukon Arts Centre (YK), The Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre (AB), The Arts and Culture Centres of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), Curtain Razors Theatre (SK), Theatre NorthWest (BC), and Victoria Playhouse (PEI), among others. In 2016, Lisa Marie conceived and co-directed the inaugural season of Main Street Ontario, an animated series on TVO inspired by The Tale of a Town, now in its third season.
Devising and directing projects with FIXT POINT include The Tale of Harbourfront Centre (Fresh Ground Commission / World Stage), The Tale of a T-Shirt (Theatre Direct / Dora Award Nominations for Outstanding Direction and Best Ensemble), Four Corners (Theatre Passe Muraille / Beyond the Walls), as well as a 7-city Canadian Fringe tour, a stint at the Edinburgh Festival and performances in Graz, Vienna and at the Prague International Festival.
Other career highlights include director of The Keith Richards One Woman Show (Suitcase in Point / Dora Nomination for Best Touring Production), Associate Director for The Double (Bad New Days w Tarragon / 5 Dora Nominations), and years of improv comedy as a cast member in Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding at Second City.
Lisa Marie holds an MA from York University where she is currently a PhD candidate pursuing research in Performance Ethnography. She is a graduate of George Brown Theatre School and Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris, France where she studied clown, bouffon, neutral mask, character, shakespeare/chekov and melodrama. Past posts include Playwright-in-Residence at Theatre Passe Muraille, Associate Artistic Director at Jumblies Theatre, and Education & Audience Development Coordinator at Canadian Stage. Lisa Marie serves on the board of Smile Theatre, The Community Arts Guild in Scarborough and the The Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) where she also sits on the Social Justice Committee. When she’s not doing theatre, Lisa Marie with her boys coaching Little League baseball or cheering on their rock band LEGO MONEY.
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a kindergarten teacher and a popstar…
Kate Walker is a Toronto-based arts administrator and producer. She is a University of Toronto graduate with a double major in Anthropology and Sexual Diversity Studies.
Kate has a diverse background in the performing arts as a singer/songwriter, with extensive music and music education experience. She was the Company Manager of Common Boots Theatre for six year and has previously worked as the Associate Producer for Theatre Direct’s 2018 WeeFestival and Producer of Shakespeare in the Ruff’s Portia’s Julius Caesar and The Winter’s Tale. Kate has been the Managing Producer of Theatre Direct since 2018 and in 2022 became the company’s Managing Director.
Her favourite role to date is becoming a mum in 2021.
Brian Postalian (any pronouns)| Artistic Producer When I was a child, I dreamed of being…whatever my father was—someone working with computers—or of being an astronaut.
Brian Postalian (Բրայն Փոսթալյան) is a performance creator, producer, and educator born and raised in Toronto/Tkaronto by way of Armenia (through Turkey), Ireland, the UK, and the Czech Republic. Brian joins Theatre Direct bringing over 15 years of experience producing, facilitating, and creating live performance across Canada and internationally.
Brian is the founding Artistic Director of Re:Current Theatre, a company dedicated to reimagining how we gather. With Re:Current, they toured the interactive playable performance New Societies nationally and internationally, including a Mandarin translation with the National Theatre of Taipei. Brian’s work co-creating the Dora Award nominated Access Me with the Boys in Chairs collective was published by Playwrights Canada Press as part of Interdependent Magic: Disability Performance in Canada. His work has been recognized with Outstanding Direction (NOW Magazine), Best Production (SummerWorks), and “Best of the Year” honours.
Brian has worked with companies and festivals across the country as a producer and artist, including Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, SummerWorks, Crow’s Theatre, Factory Theatre; Vancouver’s The Dance Centre, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Rumble Theatre, Presentation House Theatre; and many others. Brian has developed a reputation for building collaborative processes and facilitating across communities, disciplines, and scales of production.
Brian holds an MFA in Contemporary Art (Interdisciplinary Studies) from Simon Fraser University and is a certified facilitator of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. Brian has taught at Toronto Metropolitan University, University of Toronto, and Simon Fraser University. Brian also continues to work for the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival as the Industry Series Producer.
You can often find Brian playing with their dog Amie, at home hosting board game nights and playing D&D or on the courts playing queer dodgeball, ultimate frisbee and pickleball. After eight years living on the West Coast, Brian is grateful to be back home with their family in Toronto.
Alexis Eastman (she/her)| Producer When I was a child I dreamed of being…a bug doctor. Like for bugs with a cold.
Alexis is a writer, creative producer, and horror movie lover in Toronto. In addition to her work with Theatre Direct, Alexis is currently producing two projects in Residency at The Theatre Centre; The Observer Effect by Nehal El-Hadi and Versus by Adam Lazarus and Guillermo Verdecchia, premiering in May 2026. Alexis has worked in arts admin and producing with incredible companies including: Paprika Festival, Canadian Opera Company, Outside the March, and she was the producer at The Theatre Centre from 2019-2023. Select projects produced at The Theatre Centre include: Here are the Fragments.,Secret Life of a Mother, Monday Nights (Luminato 2019), Hybrid by Design Festival, Comedy is Art. Festival (2019-23), Broken Shapes, and Loss (Luminato 2023).
Carly Kastner (she/her)| Associate Producer, Education When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a lawyer and a journalist…
Carly Kastner labours across community engagement and creative storytelling. She has worked for more than 10 years to amplify voices of artists and reach diverse audiences through agencies that include the National Film Board of Canada and the Toronto International Film Festival. Dedicated to local grassroots advocacy and community governance, she is the Vice Chair of the Parkdale Residents Association and the Vice Chair of the Regent Park Film Festival. She is currently working towards a future that values cooperative principles as an alternative economic model for sustainable and equitable exchange.
Susie Burpee (she/her) | Balancing Act Executive Director
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a dancer! Dreams sometimes come true!
A dance artist active in the performing arts in Canada for over 25 years, Susie Burpee is a performer, creator, facilitator, teacher, and advocate. She danced for many years with companies such as Dancemakers, Le Groupe Dance Lab, and for many Canadian choreographers including Sasha Ivanochko, Hanna Kiel, Linnea Swan, and Tedd Robinson.
Augmenting her dance training with studies in Bouffon and Character, Susie has been a creative collaborator on projects by Crow’s Theatre, Dusk Dances, Nightwood Theatre, and Soundstreams. Her work has received Dora Mavor Moore Awards for both Outstanding Choreography and Performance and she is a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Dance.
Susie is a guest faculty member at many post-secondary dance training programs across the country. In 2020, she completed an MA in Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies from The University of Toronto. Her academic work led to authoring the article “Disappearing Act: Dance Artist Mothers in the Gig Economy of the Performing Arts in Canada” (Demeter Press).
Mother to two young children and originally from rural Manitoba, Susie now lives in Toronto/Tkaronto, where she is an active advocate for artist caregivers.
Margaret Evans (she/her) | Balancing Act Advocacy & Partnerships Lead
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…an architect, a social worker, and an actor!
Margaret is a Dora-nominated actor and producer.
As Artistic Associate in the Performing Arts Department at Harbourfront Centre, Margaret was Festival Curator for HarbourKids, and Coordinator for the Hatch Emerging Artists Residency from 2011-2014. She was also part of the World Stage team from 2008-2014 and was the principal coordinator of the Toronto production of the community-led Complaints Choir.
Margaret joined Crow’s Theatre as Associate Producer in 2015 as part of the team that opened the new venue, Streetcar Crowsnest, hailed as East-End Toronto’s largest, most ambitious theatre space to date. At Crow’s, Margaret was part of the producing team for many productions, partnerships, and community events. She is especially proud to have developed and led Crow’s Theatre’s first programming and education series for Children and Families.
A graduate of the University of King’s College (Halifax) and the Actors Studio Drama School (New York), Margaret was most recently the Producer for the 2021 edition of the SummerWorks Exchange and is also the Managing Producer of the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA).
She is mama to two inspiring and hilarious young souls and is thrilled to be joining the Balancing Act team.
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…everything! So I pursued acting.
Meryl (she/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist who immigrated to Canada with her family in 2012. She studied
Meryl (she/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist and producer who immigrated to Canada with her family in 2012. She studied Dramatic Arts and Psychology at Brock University, and she worked in new and devised pieces with several St. Catharines-based theatre and art companies. She’s also helped manage research projects in both the psychology and performing arts streams, headed at Brock University and Toronto Metropolitan University, respectively.
In 2019 she co-founded Tethered the Ghost Theatre Collective out of a residency with Suitcase in Point in St. Catharines, ON. As a collective, they address the complexities of the Filipin-Canadian diaspora. Most recently, they held a workshop and two readings of the first original show, Healing Thread, which they are continuing to develop.
In 2020, Meryl completed the Empathy Squad training with Fixt Point Arts and Media and has since developed her passion for audio storytelling; she was co-Creative Facilitator of the Empathy Squad program from 2021 to 2024. In early 2024, she joined the Balancing Act team as Associate Producer, and Meryl has since grown into the Managing Producer role, helping deliver the Level UP! Initiative and collaborating on Balancing Act communications.
Meryl is active in event planning and community work with the Filipino Community in Stratford, ON and its surrounding areas. She also performs as a vocalist and guitarist in the cover band Le Pinoy for local events.
Meryl is devoted to developing work that tells untold truths and empowers those that are under-represented.
Playwriting Credits: Give ’em Hell (Theatre Direct/Prairie Fire, Please/4th Line Theatre/Peterborough Museum and Archives), Margaret Reid (Here For Now Theatre), Tryouts (Driftwood Theatre), News Play, Everyone Wants A T-Shirt!, Madeleine Says Sorry (Toronto Fringe Festival).
Acting Credits: Ministry of Mundane Mysteries (Outside the March), Knocking on Doors,Health Care: Code Blue (Mixed Company Theatre).
Creators/Playwrights Units: Interdisciplinary Residency Program (4th Line Theatre), Beyond the Bard (Driftwood Theatre).
Awards: BMO Loran Award, NOW Magazine Awards for Outstanding Ensemble and Individual Performance, Ellen Ross Stuart “Opening Doors” Award.
Training: UofT Mississauga/Sheridan College, Second City Training Centre – Conservatory, Writing, Stand-Up.
Our Team
Lisa Marie DiLiberto (she/her) | Executive Artistic Director
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a party animal…
Lisa Marie took the helm of Theatre Direct as Executive Artistic Director in 2019. She is also the founder and lead advisor for Theatre Direct’s national initiative Balancing Act Canada which supports parents and caregivers in the performing arts. In 2023, Lisa served as co-Curator for JUNIOR at Harbourfront Centre – Canada’s largest international children’s festival.
Lisa Marie is the founding Artistic Director of FIXT POINT, where she led the creation and production of The Tale of a Town – Canada. Between 2014-2017, this theatre and media project toured to every province and territory in Canada gathering more than 3,000 stories through interviews in over 200 communities resulting in the creation of over 30 site-specific performances developed in collaboration with local professional artists including presentations at Theatre Passe Muraille (ON), The Fredericton Playhouse (NB), The Northern Arts Cultural Centre (NT), The Yukon Arts Centre (YK), The Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre (AB), The Arts and Culture Centres of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), Curtain Razors Theatre (SK), Theatre NorthWest (BC), and Victoria Playhouse (PEI), among others. In 2016, Lisa Marie conceived and co-directed the inaugural season of Main Street Ontario, an animated series on TVO inspired by The Tale of a Town, now in its third season.
Devising and directing projects with FIXT POINT include The Tale of Harbourfront Centre (Fresh Ground Commission / World Stage), The Tale of a T-Shirt (Theatre Direct / Dora Award Nominations for Outstanding Direction and Best Ensemble), Four Corners (Theatre Passe Muraille / Beyond the Walls), as well as a 7-city Canadian Fringe tour, a stint at the Edinburgh Festival and performances in Graz, Vienna and at the Prague International Festival.
Other career highlights include director of The Keith Richards One Woman Show (Suitcase in Point / Dora Nomination for Best Touring Production), Associate Director for The Double (Bad New Days w Tarragon / 5 Dora Nominations), and years of improv comedy as a cast member in Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding at Second City.
Lisa Marie holds an MA from York University where she is currently a PhD candidate pursuing research in Performance Ethnography. She is a graduate of George Brown Theatre School and Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris, France where she studied clown, bouffon, neutral mask, character, shakespeare/chekov and melodrama. Past posts include Playwright-in-Residence at Theatre Passe Muraille, Associate Artistic Director at Jumblies Theatre, and Education & Audience Development Coordinator at Canadian Stage. Lisa Marie serves on the board of Smile Theatre, The Community Arts Guild in Scarborough and the The Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) where she also sits on the Social Justice Committee. When she’s not doing theatre, Lisa Marie with her boys coaching Little League baseball or cheering on their rock band LEGO MONEY.
Kate Walker (she/her) | Managing Director
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a kindergarten teacher and a popstar…
Kate Walker is a Toronto-based arts administrator and producer. She is a University of Toronto graduate with a double major in Anthropology and Sexual Diversity Studies.
Kate has a diverse background in the performing arts as a singer/songwriter, with extensive music and music education experience. She was the Company Manager of Common Boots Theatre for six year and has previously worked as the Associate Producer for Theatre Direct’s 2018 WeeFestival and Producer of Shakespeare in the Ruff’s Portia’s Julius Caesar and The Winter’s Tale. Kate has been the Managing Producer of Theatre Direct since 2018 and in 2022 became the company’s Managing Director.
Her favourite role to date is becoming a mum in 2021.
Brian Postalian (any pronouns)| Artistic Producer
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…whatever my father was—someone working with computers—or of being an astronaut.
Brian Postalian (Բրայն Փոսթալյան) is a performance creator, producer, and educator born and raised in Toronto/Tkaronto by way of Armenia (through Turkey), Ireland, the UK, and the Czech Republic. Brian joins Theatre Direct bringing over 15 years of experience producing, facilitating, and creating live performance across Canada and internationally.
Brian is the founding Artistic Director of Re:Current Theatre, a company dedicated to reimagining how we gather. With Re:Current, they toured the interactive playable performance New Societies nationally and internationally, including a Mandarin translation with the National Theatre of Taipei. Brian’s work co-creating the Dora Award nominated Access Me with the Boys in Chairs collective was published by Playwrights Canada Press as part of Interdependent Magic: Disability Performance in Canada. His work has been recognized with Outstanding Direction (NOW Magazine), Best Production (SummerWorks), and “Best of the Year” honours.
Brian has worked with companies and festivals across the country as a producer and artist, including Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, SummerWorks, Crow’s Theatre, Factory Theatre; Vancouver’s The Dance Centre, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Rumble Theatre, Presentation House Theatre; and many others. Brian has developed a reputation for building collaborative processes and facilitating across communities, disciplines, and scales of production.
Brian holds an MFA in Contemporary Art (Interdisciplinary Studies) from Simon Fraser University and is a certified facilitator of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. Brian has taught at Toronto Metropolitan University, University of Toronto, and Simon Fraser University. Brian also continues to work for the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival as the Industry Series Producer.
You can often find Brian playing with their dog Amie, at home hosting board game nights and playing D&D or on the courts playing queer dodgeball, ultimate frisbee and pickleball. After eight years living on the West Coast, Brian is grateful to be back home with their family in Toronto.
Alexis Eastman (she/her)| Producer
When I was a child I dreamed of being…a bug doctor. Like for bugs with a cold.
Alexis is a writer, creative producer, and horror movie lover in Toronto. In addition to her work with Theatre Direct, Alexis is currently producing two projects in Residency at The Theatre Centre; The Observer Effect by Nehal El-Hadi and Versus by Adam Lazarus and Guillermo Verdecchia, premiering in May 2026. Alexis has worked in arts admin and producing with incredible companies including: Paprika Festival, Canadian Opera Company, Outside the March, and she was the producer at The Theatre Centre from 2019-2023. Select projects produced at The Theatre Centre include: Here are the Fragments., Secret Life of a Mother, Monday Nights (Luminato 2019), Hybrid by Design Festival, Comedy is Art. Festival (2019-23), Broken Shapes, and Loss (Luminato 2023).
Carly Kastner (she/her)| Associate Producer, Education
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a lawyer and a journalist…
Carly Kastner labours across community engagement and creative storytelling. She has worked for more than 10 years to amplify voices of artists and reach diverse audiences through agencies that include the National Film Board of Canada and the Toronto International Film Festival. Dedicated to local grassroots advocacy and community governance, she is the Vice Chair of the Parkdale Residents Association and the Vice Chair of the Regent Park Film Festival. She is currently working towards a future that values cooperative principles as an alternative economic model for sustainable and equitable exchange.
Susie Burpee (she/her) | Balancing Act Executive Director
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…a dancer! Dreams sometimes come true!
A dance artist active in the performing arts in Canada for over 25 years, Susie Burpee is a performer, creator, facilitator, teacher, and advocate. She danced for many years with companies such as Dancemakers, Le Groupe Dance Lab, and for many Canadian choreographers including Sasha Ivanochko, Hanna Kiel, Linnea Swan, and Tedd Robinson.
Augmenting her dance training with studies in Bouffon and Character, Susie has been a creative collaborator on projects by Crow’s Theatre, Dusk Dances, Nightwood Theatre, and Soundstreams. Her work has received Dora Mavor Moore Awards for both Outstanding Choreography and Performance and she is a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Dance.
Susie is a guest faculty member at many post-secondary dance training programs across the country. In 2020, she completed an MA in Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies from The University of Toronto. Her academic work led to authoring the article “Disappearing Act: Dance Artist Mothers in the Gig Economy of the Performing Arts in Canada” (Demeter Press).
Mother to two young children and originally from rural Manitoba, Susie now lives in Toronto/Tkaronto, where she is an active advocate for artist caregivers.
Margaret Evans (she/her) | Balancing Act Advocacy & Partnerships Lead
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…an architect, a social worker, and an actor!
Margaret is a Dora-nominated actor and producer.
As Artistic Associate in the Performing Arts Department at Harbourfront Centre, Margaret was Festival Curator for HarbourKids, and Coordinator for the Hatch Emerging Artists Residency from 2011-2014. She was also part of the World Stage team from 2008-2014 and was the principal coordinator of the Toronto production of the community-led Complaints Choir.
Margaret joined Crow’s Theatre as Associate Producer in 2015 as part of the team that opened the new venue, Streetcar Crowsnest, hailed as East-End Toronto’s largest, most ambitious theatre space to date. At Crow’s, Margaret was part of the producing team for many productions, partnerships, and community events. She is especially proud to have developed and led Crow’s Theatre’s first programming and education series for Children and Families.
A graduate of the University of King’s College (Halifax) and the Actors Studio Drama School (New York), Margaret was most recently the Producer for the 2021 edition of the SummerWorks Exchange and is also the Managing Producer of the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA).
She is mama to two inspiring and hilarious young souls and is thrilled to be joining the Balancing Act team.
Meryl Oocha (she/they) | Balancing Act Managing Producer
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…everything! So I pursued acting.
Meryl (she/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist who immigrated to Canada with her family in 2012. She studied
Meryl (she/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist and producer who immigrated to Canada with her family in 2012. She studied Dramatic Arts and Psychology at Brock University, and she worked in new and devised pieces with several St. Catharines-based theatre and art companies. She’s also helped manage research projects in both the psychology and performing arts streams, headed at Brock University and Toronto Metropolitan University, respectively.
In 2019 she co-founded Tethered the Ghost Theatre Collective out of a residency with Suitcase in Point in St. Catharines, ON. As a collective, they address the complexities of the Filipin-Canadian diaspora. Most recently, they held a workshop and two readings of the first original show, Healing Thread, which they are continuing to develop.
In 2020, Meryl completed the Empathy Squad training with Fixt Point Arts and Media and has since developed her passion for audio storytelling; she was co-Creative Facilitator of the Empathy Squad program from 2021 to 2024. In early 2024, she joined the Balancing Act team as Associate Producer, and Meryl has since grown into the Managing Producer role, helping deliver the Level UP! Initiative and collaborating on Balancing Act communications.
Meryl is active in event planning and community work with the Filipino Community in Stratford, ON and its surrounding areas. She also performs as a vocalist and guitarist in the cover band Le Pinoy for local events.
Meryl is devoted to developing work that tells untold truths and empowers those that are under-represented.
Madeleine Brown (she/her) | Next Draft Artistic Producer
When I was a child, I dreamed of being…in charge.
Madeleine Brown is a playwright and actor.
Playwriting Credits: Give ’em Hell (Theatre Direct/Prairie Fire, Please/4th Line Theatre/Peterborough Museum and Archives), Margaret Reid (Here For Now Theatre), Tryouts (Driftwood Theatre), News Play, Everyone Wants A T-Shirt!, Madeleine Says Sorry (Toronto Fringe Festival).
Acting Credits: Ministry of Mundane Mysteries (Outside the March), Knocking on Doors, Health Care: Code Blue (Mixed Company Theatre).
Creators/Playwrights Units: Interdisciplinary Residency Program (4th Line Theatre), Beyond the Bard (Driftwood Theatre).
Awards: BMO Loran Award, NOW Magazine Awards for Outstanding Ensemble and Individual Performance, Ellen Ross Stuart “Opening Doors” Award.
Training: UofT Mississauga/Sheridan College, Second City Training Centre – Conservatory, Writing, Stand-Up.
Website: www.thatmadeleinebrown.com
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Theatre Direct Board of Directors
Justin Eddy (Co-Chair)
Djennie Laguerre (Co-Chair)
Shifra Cooper
Rose Stella