2024-2025 RGTC Recipients
Mason McDonald
Project Title: GAIA
McDonald (they/them) is a multidisciplinary Métis artist from Treaty 6 Territory, Saskatchewan, now based in Tkaronto. As an actor, choreographer, writer, and poet, Mason’s work is deeply rooted in ensuring trans and queer people are portrayed as multifaceted individuals with rich inner worlds. Their creative practice weaves a strong connection to land, identity, and cultural expression; their performances and written works often explore themes of resilience, belonging, and the intersections of community and self. Mason has received over two dozen awards and recognitions from around the globe for their independent and commissioned choreographic works. They are an alumnus of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Performance-Acting program, a proud member of ACTRA Toronto, and represented by Play Management.
The Emphasize Collective (Tyler J Sloane)
Project Title: Baabiiishin
Tyler J. Sloane (they/he/she) is a lover, poet, visionary Creative Director and multidisciplinary artist specializing in acting and media arts, with a foundation in theatre as an actor, producer, and director. Drawing on their Anishinaabe, Chinese, and European heritage, Tyler’s work celebrates vibrant identities through photography and performance, focusing on intimacy, saturation, and playfulness. Their art challenges norms, inspires connection, and invites audiences to engage with the beauty of selfhood and diversity. As an Actor they’re represented by Lily Pritchard of Oldfield Management.
Select Theatre credits; My Sister’s Rage (Tarragon Theatre); Crystalize (Caminos Festival 2019 – Aluna Theatre); Switch the Village (the Switch Collective); Youth/Elder’s Project (Buddies in Bad Times);
Select Film credits; Everland (Dance Made in Canada, Guelph Dance Screen Dance Series 2023); Club Kid Alley (ImagineNative 2023); 1 Queen 5 Queers – Season 2: Episode 7, Season 1: Episode 5 and Episode 8 (Crave); Exploring the Mental Health Journeys of Young Asian-Canadians – Episode 3: ‘Tyler J Sloane – Surviving to Thriving’ (VICE);
Celeste Sansregret
Project Title: In Transit
Celeste is Metis/Ukrainian heritage from Treaty One Territory. An award-winning writer, actor, producer and senior arts administrator, she made her first stage appearance at age 3, and has worked in and appeared on stage, film and television.
Sansregret is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre (Prime Time Television) and the University of Winnipeg (Theatre) She has toured the country on the national Fringe circuit with two solo shows she starred in, and created: WONDERBAR and IN A MAGIC KINGDOM. In 2020, she retired from the CENTRE FOR INDIGENOUS THEATRE, where she served as Managing Director.
Connor Lafortune
Project Title: Maa ndayaamin geyaaba—We’re Still Here
Connor Lafortune is from Dokis First Nation in Northeastern Ontario. He works primarily in Life Promotion, harm-reduction, mental health, and Indigenous education. He is Anishinaabek, Queer, and Francophone; he uses his understanding of the world to shape his creations as a writer, spoken word poet, and musician. Connor combines the written word with traditional Indigenous beadwork and sewing to recreate the stories of colonization, showcase resilience, and imagine a new future. He released a single in collaboration with G.R. Gritt titled “Qui crie au loup?” He also co-edited A Thousand Tiny Awakenings with Lindsay Mayhew through Latitude 46 Publishing.
Alicia Plummer
Project Title: The Elevator
Alicia Plummer is an actor/writer from Scarborough, Ontario. She is a graduate from University of Windsor’s BFA Acting program. Her most recent credits include: Mary and Her Jar of Jam in Women At Play(s) Festival 6, Sweet Pea in Sweeter with Cahoots Theatre, and Alice in Alice in Wonderland with Guild Festival Theatre. In terms of writing, there was a staged-reading of her play, It Just Bugs Me, at Spring Works last spring; her horror themed Caribbean play, Shut The Front Door, aired on PROGRAMSOUND.FM radio June 2023; and she took part in Obsidian Theater’s Playwrights Unit 2021/2022.
María Escolán
Project Title: Mujer en Fragmentos | A Woman in Fragments
María Escolán (she/her) is a Salvadoran-Canadian theatre artist with an emerging practice in creation/playwriting and directing. Workshop showings of her work in development Mujer en Fragmentos | A Woman in Fragments have taken place in Toronto with Aluna Theatre’s CAMINOS Festival, in San Salvador with Asociación Cultural del Azoro, and in Vancouver with rice & beans theatre’s DBLSPK Program. María holds a BFA Degree in Theatre Performance from the School for Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University.
desirée livingstone
Project Title: Mujer en Fragmentos | A Woman in Fragments
desirée is an artist: she is a thinker and a doer. her brain dreams of ways to create art that shows how we can live together in a way that is filled with more depth, more fullness, and more spirit. her hands facilitate, teach, learn, and lead others to be dreamers too: whatever their dreams may be. desirée studies theatre institutionally and spirit personally. theatre can be so many things. desirée’s particularly absorbed with theatre that is decolonized, theatre that is embodied, and theatre that is epic. she spends her time as an assistant professor at the university of toronto, and an artist in the universe.