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
Nyx Orr (they/them)
Outgoing emerging producer in residence
Nyx is a queer, non-binary theatre artist based in Alberta. They love to act, mask, clown, move, and devise their way through stages and found spaces. They are passionate about sustainability and are always working to find ways to make climate conscious art. Additionally, Nyx is a textile artist and enjoys finding ways to connect art to theatre. Nyx is a Co-Creator of the r u home yet collective, and has worked in various roles with the Major Matt Mason Collective, Wagonstage Children’s Theatre, Theatre Xtra, and Nickel and Dime Student Theatre. They studied drama at the University of Lethbridge and the University of Calgary.
Sophie May Healey (she/they)
Incoming emerging producer in residence (Edmonton)
Sophie is a queer, interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and European descent based in amiskwaciwâskahikan. She holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta, and has trained in Paris at École Philippe Gaulier, as well as throughout Canada with Ghost River Theatre and One North Clown and Creation. Her experimental comedy has made audiences go “...huh!” on stages across North America and Europe. Last summer she workshopped her first solo show Hysteria’s House at Nextfest 2024, and after a sold out run, she is intent on producing a full production of this work. Additionally, Sophie works as a freelance illustrator, writer and indie comic creator, and their works have been featured in curated anthologies such as Slumber Party and Western Exotic.
Joseph McManus (he/they)
Incoming emerging producer in residence (Calgary)
Joseph is a Calgary-based theatre artist, musician, creator, and educator. They live by three main mantras: Create unserious art as seriously as possible; Entertainment first, Safety third; and Confuse the aliens. As a longtime fan of MMMC, Joseph is ecstatic to be on board this year as an emerging producer in residence and can't wait to use the skills he learns to continue creating clowny and strange works into the distant future.