about
What is the Major Matt Mason Collective?
The Major Matt Mason Collective is a performance company dedicated to creating visceral, intimate, experimental, small-scale theatre about and for Alberta’s younger generations.
Our focus is to connect with audiences who haven’t had a strong relationship with the theatre, while finding innovative approaches to performance that make theatre an exciting and relevant art form.
We are passionate about young voices, innovative design, and work that is provocative both in subject matter and presentation. We tackle high-risk, socially charged projects, challenging our audiences and ourselves to engage in dialogue on current social issues.
Since 2011 we’ve been dedicated to developing the voices of young artists through an expansive commitment to new play development and dramaturgical support. We work to prioritize both the hiring and mentorship of early career artists, theatre professionals who are in the beginning stages of their artistic careers.
Zoë Glassman, Evan Medd, Joe Perry, Mikaela Cochrane, & Jay Northcott in Premium Content by David Gagnon Walker (2018). Direction by Geoffrey Simon Brown. Production design by Alison Yanota. Video by Tyler Klein Longmire. Photo by Tye Carson
"...the theatre game in Calgary is MMMC's to lose."
Wil Knoll (Avenue Magazine)
Core Values
MENTORSHIP - supporting early career artists both creatively and administratively, imbuing them with a sense of trust and responsibility, while creating lasting collaborative relationships
DRAMATURGY - dedication to new work and dramaturgically minded developmental support that is geared towards supporting up and coming theatre practitioners, playwrights, and makers.
EQUITY & DIVERSITY - including, supporting, elevating, and respecting the voices of queer and IBPOC artists through equitable working and hiring practices, upholding the 35//50 initiative standards on a project to project basis, and working towards an ultimate goal of cultivating more diverse leadership
ALCHEMY - creating opportunity within the limits we are working under, while synthesizing artistic forms and disciplines to create richer and more robust artistic experiences
REFLEXIVITY - being responsive to and reflective of the ideas and questions that define our present moment and bringing them into dialogue with our audiences
FLEXIBILITY - being nimble in how our processes are developed, challenging traditional hierarchical structures and scheduling demands, while considering and implementing varied forms of access
Leadership
Evan Medd (he/they)
dreamingclimateconsciousness.com
Evan is a dramaturg, facilitator, producer, performer, and puppeteer based in both Calgary and Vancouver. His practice primarily focuses on dramaturgical strategizing of process design, community engaged art that intersects with environmental dialogues, and collaborative new play development and production with the Major Matt Mason Collective, for whom he is Co-Artistic Producer. For the past few summers Evan has been working in Prince Edward Island on a piece called The River Clyde Pageant, an outdoor spectacle that celebrates community while drawing attention to the unfortunate reality of PEI’s fading waterways. He has also recently spearheaded a new initiative called Dreaming Climate Consciousness, a collaborative process where participants work together to imagine eco-conscious futures through the lens of speculative/science fiction.
Geoffrey Simon Brown (he/him)
geoffreysimonbrown.com
Geoffrey is an Albertan playwright, actor, director, and producer. He is a founding member of the Major Matt Mason Collective and has served as director of the Wildfire National Playwriting Competition since 2015. His plays include Progress, Michael Mysterious, Night, Time, Still Still Still, Control, Air, Destroy, The Circle (which was published by Scirocco Drama in 2017), and the most recent adaptation(s) of A Christmas Carol for Theatre Calgary. Geoffrey was the creator-in-residence at Theatre Junction GRAND from 2016-2018, leading their mentorship program and creating the play If I Could Tell You Everything with an ensemble of Calgary teenagers. As an actor he has worked on many of the major stages in Calgary as well as some living rooms and basements. He is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.
Whittyn Jason (they/them)
whittyn.com
Whittyn is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race designer, curator, and theatre-maker of South African and Ukrainian heritage. Born and raised in amiskwacîwâskahikan (colonially known as Edmonton, Alberta), they work primarily as an award-winning lighting designer, and up and coming curator with Found Festival as Festival Director. Their work focuses on interactive, site-specific or responsive performance and new work. They have designed (and curated) for black boxes, tiny stages, big stages, indie films, live events, beer gardens, concrete cubes, empty hockey arenas, parties, debauchery and mischief, immersive website experiences, shows that have to pack up into the back of a pickup, haunted barns, impossible projects, abandoned buildings, dive bars, apartments, river valleys, warehouses, woodshops, river valleys, historical museums and more
They are very excited to be Major Matt Mason’s newest boy.
Emerging Producer-in-Residence Program
Liz Janzen (she/her)
Emerging producer in residence (Edmonton)
Liz is a writer, producer, director, instructor, performer, and theatre-lover/maker/watcher/fan currently living in Edmonton, Alberta who is beyond stoked to be learning from and working with the folks at Major Matt Mason Collective. She holds a BFA from MacEwan University, and she is one of the founders and artistic producers of Top Bunk Theatre, an indie comedy theatre company known for the musical works Sam’s Clams & Oyster Bar, Practically Perfect Pitch and Soup & Hogan’s 16th Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest, as well as Top Bunk Tonight: A Monthly Sketch Comedy Show and (Going) Down on our Luck. She has worked with Kompany Family Theatre, Grindstone Theatre, Azimuth Theatre, Workshop West Playwrights Theatre, Straight Edge Theatre, NextFest Arts Co., SATCO, Youth Theatre Canada, Jubilations Dinner Theatre, Walterdale Theatre, Puddle of Mud, Cantilon Choral Society, and MacEwan University. She loves when theatre gets odd and pushes past the veil of hierarchy to genuinely connect with the audience, and is passionate about creating joy and mysticism in our current times.
Eve Beauchamp (they/them/iel)
Emerging producer in residence (Calgary)
Eve is an award-winning Calgary-based theatre artist, performer, playwright, critic, director, and current MFA in Drama student at the University of Calgary. Eve’s playwriting credits include The Interview Play (Calgary Fringe, 2025), la•bel (Levity Theatre, 2023), and Twelve Hundred (Youth Infringement Festival, 2021). They are the co-founder of Levity Theatre and their devised credits with the company include Unmatched for a 2022 Fringe Tour (Best in Venue, Hamilton Fringe) and SOLD (Emerging Artist Winner, Calgary Fringe, 2021). As a queer/trans theatre artist, their work and research focuses on queering performance through content, form, politics, and practice.