Stompin’ Tom Connors was a renowned folksinger, an ardent nationalist and spokesperson for ordinary Canadians.

In the 1995 CBC The National interview with Laurie Brown he says, “That’s what I’m trying to do for Canadians. I’m trying to uplift my country…I’m trying to make the young people realize we have something to sing about.”

Many Canadians know …

Emily Carr was an acclaimed Canadian painter and writer – her own person.

She went against her upbringing and the society around her by following her want and need to paint, especially the First Nations people of Canada’s West Coast.

Born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1871, the year British Columbia joined Canada, Emily Carr was the second youngest of nine children born to English parents Richard and Emily Carr. 

The Carr children were raised in an English tradition. Her father believed it was sensible to live on Vancouver Island, a colony of Great Britain, where …

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, the great Soviet filmmaker, was born in Riga on January 10, 1898. He was a film director, teacher, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist best known for his film Battleship Potemkin.

On October 17, 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in Russia and overthrew …

Taras Shevchenko, the national bard of Ukraine, is a founder of modern Ukrainian literature and language. A champion of people’s freedom, with his poetry, he played a leading role in the formation of the Ukrainian national identity and consciousness. Political and revolutionary, his poems which …

James Baldwin was an acclaimed writer and political activist who participated in the movement for African American rights, fought against the war in Vietnam and spoke out against the persecution of homosexuals.

Born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York, he was a writer who gave the …

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and lyricist and is considered the national poet of Scotland. Celebrated worldwide, he is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language and is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. 

In his autobiographical letter to John Moore, Burns described his recognition…

Pep Guardiola is a football (soccer) manager of Manchester City Football Club, the current champions of the Premier League in England.

He is a man of principle, practices a human-centered method, has social consciousness, and raises the level of the beautiful game.     

Josep Guardiola Sala is Catalan and was …

Chief Dan George was one of Canada’s best known and highly regarded actors and writers.

One of his most noteworthy contributions was a spoken-word poem he wrote and read at the Centennial celebration in Vancouver on July 1, 1967, entitled A Lament for Confederation. In this piece, Chief Dan George decried the treatment of First Nations peoples since

Marie Dressler was a famous Canadian actress and union organizer. She was born in Cobourg, Ontario on November 9, 1868.

She spent many years learning her profession acting in touring theatre companies all across Canada and the United States eventually working in Broadway plays and musicals.

Marie was cast alongside …

John Grierson, considered the father of the documentary film, was the first Commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada and wrote the bill that went before Parliament creating the then National Film Commission in 1939.

The Tallest Tree in Our Forest is a 1977 documentary film directed and written by Gil Noble, about singer, actor and activist, Paul Robeson. The biography was shot on 16mm film and is comprised of interviews, film footage and photographs.

The film, in chronological order, shows how Robeson attended Rutgers University on a scholarship where he was a College All American in football, the …

‘Brecht was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. He was also a director, poet, intellectual, politically committed to the cause of liberating the world from the exploitation of man by man …

The Porter is a CBC and BET+ original television series now airing on CBC and Gem consisting of 8 one-hour episodes. Produced by Winnipeg-based Inferno Pictures and Sienna Films the show is described by CBC as, ‘…the largest Black-led production in the history of Canadian Television.’

A number of issues are facing actors at this time as the current economic crisis weighs in on the film and TV industry.

On October 19, the talent agency Compass Artist Management Inc. told its actors that it was no longer viable and that it was ceasing operations with immediate effect. Current and former Compass clients say the agency did not pay them for their acting work, which they did between January and September this year. They are owed more than $230,000 in total.

Two California-based companies have been selected by the City of Toronto to develop and operate a new $250 million film, television and digital media hub along Toronto’s waterfront.

Two events occurred in the movie industry in Hollywood in the fall of 2021.

First, a tragic work accident claimed the life of Halnya Hutchins, the cinematographer and wounded Joel Souza, the director on the low-budget Hollywood movie Rust.

The accident occurred when …

A devastating blow to the Toronto arts community happened in October 2021 when seventy arts organizations received notice that they have to vacate their space.

Artscape Distillery Studios is the name of the building housing the arts organizations who have been there for twenty years. The Studio includes many famous groups including Nightwood Theatre and Tapestry Opera and others who have won …

In most countries, actors need to audition to get work. The process consists of the movie producer contacting casting directors with a list of characters and casting sends out that list to talent agents.

Agents submit actors from their roster to casting for each role and then if casting chooses one of their actors to audition that actor is contacted by their agent.

Most auditions are either ‘Zoom auditions’ or self-tapes. Zoom auditions are run by …

At an executive meeting of the Actors Discussion group the discussion elaborated on the usefulness and particular quality of the group.

Many points were raised including one phrase that stood out - the normalization of speech.

That phrase was aptly coined while reviewing and expanding on parts of the guidelines of the discussion group that include …