Ilana Lucas has been a big theatre nerd since witnessing a fateful Gilbert and Sullivan production at the age of seven. She has studied theatre for most of her life, holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton and an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia, and is currently a professor of English and Theatre at Centennial College. She believes that theatre has a unique ability to foster connection, empathy and joy, and has a deep love of the playfulness of the written word. Her favourite theatrical experience was the nine-hour, all-day Broadway performance of The Norman Conquests, which made fast friends of an audience of strangers.
The theme of writer/performer Vanessa Smythe’s In Case We Disappear (Hopscotch on the Rocks), playing at the 2015 Toronto Fringe Festival, is the fear of disappearing and the stories we tell ourselves to help us fall asleep at night despite that fear.