Welcome to STUPIDHEAD!

Below you’ll find an embedded audio player that you’ll use to experience the show. A few quick things you need to know:

• The live stream will go “on air” at 8PM EDT.

• IMPORTANT: When it goes “on air”, you need to hit the “play” to listen!

• This show is happening LIVE! So if you hit “pause,” then “play” again, it will pick up “live” again, not where you left off! So maybe just leave it playing?

• The show starts with a 5-minute Overture, because remote performance can be classy, too.

• If you require a text version to follow along, follow the link below the player.

• If you’re listening on your phone, 1) please set to “do not disturb”, otherwise an incoming call might interrupt the stream; 2) please turn “auto-lock” to “never” on iPhone or adjust your screen “timeout” on Android, otherwise your phone screen “locking” will interrupt the stream.

Now grab a snack and beverage of choice and your favourite emotional support stuffed animal and enjoy the show!

Stupidhead! is on Mixlr

Access Tool: click here for an easy-to-follow accessible text of the show.


Digital Program

Image: text "Stupidhead" and co-creators "Katherine Cullen" and "Britta Johnson" appear on a pastel green background with a pink cartoon brain below. Design by Sébastien Heins.

Production History

Stupidhead! has been supported and developed by so many generous artists within the theatre community. Initially, Stupidhead! began as a 3-day residency workshop at VideoFag, a storefront cinema and performance lab in Kensington Market run by William Ellis and Jordan Tannahill in October of 2014. This is the moment Kath went from singing bizarre “songs” to herself in her bedroom (aka screaming into the void) to asking Britta to help her transform her show into a musical odyssey. 

From there, the team expanded to include Aaron Willis (Director and Dramaturg), Anahita Dehbonehie (Set and Costume Design), and Jennifer Lennon (Lighting Design). In 2015 Stupidhead! was accepted into the SummerWorks Festival and won ‘Best New Performance Text.” In 2017, Theatre Passe Muraille included Stupidhead! in its season, and with the generous support of Andy McKim, Jiv Parasram, and Régine Cadet, the show grew exponentially for its world premiere (Stage Managed by Meghan Speakman). Since then, the Stupidhead! team has had the pleasure of bringing the show to Kingston for the 2019 Kick and Push Festival curated and run by Liam Karry. Finally, we are so thrilled to have this opportunity to work with our dear friends at Outside the March and Talk Is Free Theatre in what feels like such a historic moment. We are all so grateful to be able to gather once again, to laugh, to tell some stories, to feel less alone during what has been a lonely time for many. Thank you so much for being here, we missed you very much.

– The Stupidhead! Team


CREATIVE TEAM

Katherine Cullen – Co-Creator / Performer
Britta Johnson – Co-Creator / Performer
Aaron Willis – Director
Anahita Dehbonehie – Production Design
Jennifer Lennon – Production Design Consultant and Original Lighting Design
Meghan Speakman – Stage Manager
Nick Blais – Production Manager
Colin Doyle – Producer
Adam Sakiyama – Audio Engineer

Outside the March
Mitchell Cushman – Artistic Director
Katherine Devlin Rosenfeld – Managing Producer
Griffin McInnes – Creative Producer
Laura McCallum – General Manager
Sébastien Heins – Associate Artistic Director
Jeff Ho – Company Dramaturg
Nick Blais – Head of Design
Rosamund Small – Artistic Associate, Metcalf Foundation Intern
Annie Luján – Audience Concierge, The Pop-Up Experience


BIOS

Katherine Cullen, Co-Creator & Performer
OtM: Founding Artist

Recently: Katherine is an actor and playwright based in Toronto and a founding member of Outside the March, an award-winning site-specific theatre company. Most recently, she was invited to participate in the Playwright’s Retreat at the Stratford Festival. Throughout the pandemic she was a performer on Outside the March’s The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries.

Other credits include: TomorrowLove (OtM, My Theatre Award- Best Supporting Actress), Vitals (OtM, Dora Nomination- Outstanding Performance- Female) Mr. Marmalade (OtM), The Nether (The Coal Mine Theatre, Dora Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble). Katherine debuted her show Stupidhead! as a part of Theatre Passe Muraille’s 2017 Season. The show earned her and co-creator Britta Johnson a Dora Award Nomination for Outstanding New Play.

Upcoming: Katherine is in development with her new play, Kennel, a dark-comedy about actors rehearsing a show for Theatre for Young Audiences.


Britta Johnson, Co-Creator & Performer
OtM: Dr. Silver: A Celebration of Life (Co-Creator), Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Music Director)

Elsewhere: Britta is a composer, lyricist and writer whose credits include Life After (Canadian Stage 2017, Old Globe San Diego 2018), Dr. Silver: A Celebration of Life (Outside the March), Brantwood and Trap Door (Theatre Sheridan), Jacob Two-Two (YPT), Reframed (AGO/MSC). She was the librettist for choreographer Robert Binet’s adaptation of The Kreutzer Sonata with Ballet Moscow and was recently named one of 50 Women to Watch by the Broadway Women’s Fund of America. Britta can currently be seen performing around the city with collaborator Sara Farb in Musical Stage Company’s Porchside Songs.

Upcoming: Kelly v. Kelly in co-production with Canadian Stage and The Musical Stage Company and a new production of Life After at Arena Stage in Washington DC.


Aaron Willis, Director
Outside the March: Murderers Confess At Christmas Time (Actor), Passion Play (Co-Director), A Community Target (Co-Director)

Recently: Selected directing: Athabasca (Convergence Theatre/Next Stage Festival), The Preposterous Predicament of Polly Peel (Fringe 2018 – Patron’s Pick), Another Sunrise/Farewell Auschwitz (Electric Bond Opera/Beth Tzedec Congregation), Meet Cute (Roseneath Theatre – Dora Nomination), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (George Brown Theatre School), The Unending (Convergence), The Crucible (UTM/Sheridan College), The Testament of Mary (Soulpepper). Aaron is proud to have been working with the Stupidhead! team since its first full production back in 2015 at SummerWorks. 

Elsewhere: Aaron is the co-Artistic Leader of Convergence Theatre, with Julie Tepperman. He served as the Associate Artistic Director of the Musical Stage Company for two seasons, as well as managed their new musical development program. He is a regular teaching artist with The Stratford Festival, The Hamilton Fringe, Ryerson University’s ACT II Studio, Humber Theatre School, UTM/Sheridan College, and George Brown Theatre School. He was last seen onstage as an actor in the recent Modern Times production of The Cherry Orchard.

Upcoming:  www.convergencetheatre.com / twitter @aaronwillis18, @TO_Convergence


Anahita Dehbonehie, Production Design
OtM: The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries (Production Design), The Flick (Costume and Lobby Design), The Tape Escape (Production Design), Dr. Silver (Production Design)

Recently: Anahita Dehbonehie is an Iranian performance designer, creator and installation artist. Currently based in Toronto, her practice is founded on the principle that truths are communicated most powerfully through evocative sensory experiences. She is drawn specifically to work that questions form and content while creating space for contemporary conversation. 

Elsewhere: Anahita’s work has been featured across Canada and internationally, including at the Prague Quadrennial, The Vilnius Capital of Culture, and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Since making Toronto her home in 2012, her designs have been recognized with a variety of nominations and awards, including two Dora Mavor Moore awards and eight nominations. She was a finalist for the Virginia Myrtle Cooper award in costume design in 2016- 2018 and was named one of Now Magazine’s top theatre artists in 2015 and 2019.


Jennifer Lennon, Production Design Consultant & Original Lighting Design
OtM: Debut

Recently: This is How We Got Here (Native Earth), Besbouss (Pleiades), Almighty Voice and his Wife, Escaped Alone (Soulpepper), Yaga (Tarragon), Idomeneo (Opera Atelier).

Elsewhere: Athabasca (Convergence Theatre), The Container (set and lighting, Theatre Fix), Bombay Black (Factory Theatre, Dora Award), The Twelve-Pound Look (Shaw Festival), Little Women, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre Orangeville).

Upcoming: Jennifer is also an English editor for Kiva, an international non-profit that works to expand financial access to underserved communities around the world. Check them out at Kiva.org.


Meghan Speakman, Stage Manager
OtM: Debut

Recently: The Ministry of Grace (Belfry Theatre), Cottagers & Indians (Tarragon), The Election (Common Boots) 

Elsewhere: Hand to God (Coal Mine), Lunenburg (Upper Canada Playhouse), Outside (Roseneath), Animal Farm (Soulpepper), Come Down From Up River (Foster Festival), Early August (Lighthouse Festival Theatre), Dib and Dob and the Journey Home (Manitoba Theatre for Young People)

Upcoming: Meghan has spent the last year working on the FX TV production Y: The Last Man, which will be airing in September, 2021.


Nick Blais, Production Manager
OtM: Head of Design

Recently: Nick Blais designs across Canada in all manner of discipline and venue: from theatres, parks, abandoned buildings, schools, storefronts, living rooms and concert halls. As Head of Design for Toronto’s leading immersive theatre company, Outside the March, Nick specializes in assembling gifted teams, creating and facilitating thematic, impactful designs, and transforming unconventional spaces into immersive, dramatic environments.

Nick has received Dora Mavor Moore Awards in Toronto for both set and lighting design, nominated for the Virginia Myrtle Cooper award in costume design, and various other awards and nominations across the country.  His design work was featured in 2011 at the Prague Quadrennial for Theatre design, and was showcased in Professional Lighting Magazine for his innovation in off-the-grid lighting design and site-specific scenography. 

Other credits include: The Flick, Tape Escape, Dr. Silver, Jerusalem, TomorrowLove™, Mr. Burns, Terminus (Outside the March); Marjorie Prime, Hand to God, Aliens (Coal Mine); Immersive Van Gogh, Four Chords and a Gun (Starvox); Oil, Human Animals, Dissidents, Pomona, Moment (ARC); Kiss of the Spider Woman (Eclipse); Glass Menagerie (Grand Theatre); Bang Bang (Factory); Vespers (Royal Winnipeg Ballet); Fiddler on the Roof, Don Giovanni, L’Elisir D’Amore, Alcina, Ariadne auf Naxos, Albert Herring (Opera Nuova); Magic Flute, Madama Butterfly (Saskatoon Opera); West Side Story (Citadel); Merrily We Roll Along, and Brantwood (Sheridan). 

Upcoming: nblaisdesign.com


Adam Sakiyama, Audio Engineer
OtM: Dr. Silver (Accompanist/Conductor)

Adam Sakiyama is a Dora award-winning music director, composer & lyricist. Recent theatre credits include Sunday in the Park with George (Eclipse Theatre), Songs for a New World (Theatre Sheridan), Reprint (Musical Stage Co.), Next to Normal (Musical Stage Co. / Mirvish), and Billy Elliot (Stratford). Composing credits include Quench (Axon Interactive) and in between (National Ballet of Canada). Songwriter/Arranger for Super Simple Songs, one of the most watched educational channels on YouTube. Currently writing the score for Macbeth (Ballet Kelowna). Adam is a proud alumnus of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.


Thank You to the following people who have helped nurture and support Stupidhead! from its infancy to the present:

Farnoosh Talebpour

Jess Lee

Colin Doyle

William Ellis

Jordan Tannahill 

Michael Rubenfeld and the SummerWorks Festival

Sarah Allison

Andy McKim

Jiv Parasram

Régine Cadet

Jenn Sartor 

Eric Read

Kimwun Perehinec

Claire MacMillan

Jason Golinsky

David Fisher

Leslie Howard and Austin Cullen

Holly Shephard 

Blair Steinbach 

Fides Krucker

Alex Paxton Beesley

Tess Degenstein 

Liam Karry and the Kick and Push Festival

Evan Harkai

Randolph College for the Performing Arts

Seraph-Eden Boroditsky