At Mainstage Theatre Company, we pride ourselves on the quality productions we mount and the tremendous experience we provide Toronto’s youth by working with professional theatre artists and venues. We consistently provide relevant and superior musical theatre training that expands our company members’ appreciation for the arts and broadens their understanding of the stage. But most importantly, we invite these youth to join a family in which they feel comfortable expressing themselves and where artistic collaboration is encouraged.
Mainstage Theatre Company focuses on mentoring youth. Through the experience of being essential members of our team, our youth grow into confident and creative members within their own circles. We understand that these productions aren’t necessarily the end of our cast members’ journey in theatre, and pride ourselves on offering guidance and preparation for those who choose to pursue future studies or work in the arts.
What makes Mainstage Theatre Company truly special is the connection each cast and production team feel as they come together to create a remarkable experience that is unique and special with each production. Our alumni have gone on to do wonderful things and, having been part of their pre-professional training, we can’t help but feel great pride in their success.
Mainstage Theatre Company focuses on mentoring youth. Through the experience of being essential members of our team, our youth grow into confident and creative members within their own circles. We understand that these productions aren’t necessarily the end of our cast members’ journey in theatre, and pride ourselves on offering guidance and preparation for those who choose to pursue future studies or work in the arts.
What makes Mainstage Theatre Company truly special is the connection each cast and production team feel as they come together to create a remarkable experience that is unique and special with each production. Our alumni have gone on to do wonderful things and, having been part of their pre-professional training, we can’t help but feel great pride in their success.
Mission and Values
Mainstage Theatre Company (MTC) provides youth, aged 11-21, with the opportunity to experience the magic of pre-professional musical theatre. Under the guidance of some of Canada’s theatre leaders - directors, choreographers and music directors, MTC mounts two full music theatre productions and offers a number of workshops and theatre events each year. These events provide youth with diverse opportunities to audition and perform, develop their artistic abilities, learn the technical aspects of theatre production, and experience the power of delivering an outstanding production to an audience. Since its inauguration in 2008, MTC has become renowned for the quality of its productions, (talented performers, beautifully designed and crafted sets and costumes) and has become a top competitor in the Toronto theatre education industry.
Our intensive actor-training program unlocks our students’ unique and creative talents, and provides the tools that aspiring young actors need to make the most of their potential. Engaging in the process of music theatre productions also helps develop personal skills and resources that have life-long benefits, such as greater self-confidence, self-discipline, effective time-management and self-awareness.
MTC’s engagement of youth in musical theatre enables them to experience the value of ‘community’, and ‘belonging’ and the satisfaction of participating in an artistic project that enhances peoples’ lives. It allows youth to explore issues in contemporary society, and to explore their own goals, aspirations and relationship to the community at large. Music theatre also brings together diverse people with widely different experiences of life and as such, facilitates the exploration of, and sharing in, Toronto’s cultural mosaic.
Lastly, MTC provides students with a creative, nurturing, joyful and inspiring experience.
Our intensive actor-training program unlocks our students’ unique and creative talents, and provides the tools that aspiring young actors need to make the most of their potential. Engaging in the process of music theatre productions also helps develop personal skills and resources that have life-long benefits, such as greater self-confidence, self-discipline, effective time-management and self-awareness.
MTC’s engagement of youth in musical theatre enables them to experience the value of ‘community’, and ‘belonging’ and the satisfaction of participating in an artistic project that enhances peoples’ lives. It allows youth to explore issues in contemporary society, and to explore their own goals, aspirations and relationship to the community at large. Music theatre also brings together diverse people with widely different experiences of life and as such, facilitates the exploration of, and sharing in, Toronto’s cultural mosaic.
Lastly, MTC provides students with a creative, nurturing, joyful and inspiring experience.
Who We Are
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Jen Cohen | Artistic Director |
Murphy Diggon | Administrator
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Jen Cohen (Shuber) is an award winning director and choreographer,
dramaturg and writer. After an early start full time at The National Ballet of Canada, she went on to graduate from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (summer program) and the Lyric and Book Labs at NMI in L.A. She is an alumnus of The Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals, the ASCAP Stephen Schwartz Workshop and Interlochen Centre for the Arts in Michigan where she is also currently on the Board of Directors of Canadian Friends of Interlochen. Jen has worked for most of the major theatres in Toronto including Soulpepper, Young People’s Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, The Harold Green Jewish Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Angelwalk Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times and many more. Jen has also served as dramaturg and/or director on new musicals for Sheridan College’s Capstone Project, Louise Pitre’s one woman show “On The Rocks” and projects by Jim Betts, Colleen Dauncey and Akiva Romer-Segal, Britta and Anika Johnson and Leslie Arden to name a few. She also served as program director of Theatre 20’s “Composium”, a composer and lyricist writing unit in Toronto. Jen has been nominated for the Siminovitch Prize in Directing and for the Ockrent Theatre Directing Fellowship SSDC, NY. She has won a Dora for Best Production of a Musical for A Year with Frog and Toad at the Young People’s Theatre and is a Dora nominee for Best Musical Production of Pasek and Paul’s James and The Giant Peach. A few fun facts are that Jen has been seen on MTV, YTV, CBC and Slice and has been in major motion pictures including working with Denzel Washington, Ray Liotta and Kevin Conolly. She also works in talent acquisition for the Toronto Blue Jays and has casted their live entertainment for more than 16 seasons. |
Murphy Diggon is a producer, production manager and stage manager for theatre and film. Murphy holds a degree in Theatre Production and Design from York University. Since graduation, she has spent a year living and working in Japan and another travelling the US working on musical theatre tours.
Murphy is currently settled back in Canada as the Assistant Production Manager for the Canadian Opera Company, Venue Manager for Space Space Revolution, and now Administrator for Mainstage Theatre. She started with Mainstage in 2018 as rehearsal manager for their spring production of Newsies and fell in love with the theatre's approach to training youth in musical theatre. Selected Theatre credits include: Freaky Friday, The Musical (SM / Mainstage Theatre), Legally Blonde The Musical, SpongeBob Squarepants The Musical (PSM / Mainstage Theatre), Urinetown, The Music Man, Matilda, Newsies (Rehearsal Manager / Mainstage Theatre), Shopkins Live Tour (APM & ASM / Koba Entertainment), Pan AM Panamania (PSM / City of Toronto), Queen In Me, Fantasma, Wow Factor: A Cinderella Story (PM / COC - Canadian Opera Company Theatre), Get Better (Producer & SM / BuzzKill Productions - Selected to perform at the Toronto Rehab Awards Ceremony), Marina and the Cryptids (Producer & SM / Felt Heart Collective), Salt Water Moon (SM / Strive Theatre). |
Board of Directors
Jennifer McGuire, President
Indrani Butany DeSouza, Vice President
Robert Barrass, Vice President
Yael Woodward Amaral, Treasurer
Sara Davis, Secretary
Vanessa Bresee
Susan Davies
Saccha Dennis
Jacques Monfiston
Jay T. Schramek
Matthew Vilord
Pnina Alon-Shenker
Genevieve Labrie
Renee Stein