Meet the HFTco team!
HFTco Staff
Christopher Stanton
Executive Director
Christopher Stanton oversees the Hamilton Festival Theatre Company. He is an award-winning performer, director, sound designer, composer, and educator. His stage work has taken him across Canada to Toronto, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Montreal – and internationally to New York, Bogotà, Munich, Brisbane, Dublin, and Vienna. Past roles in artistic leadership include UnSpun Theatre, The Room, and ARC. Chris joined the HFTco team as the Hamilton Fringe Festival Director in February 2020.
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Franny McCabe-Bennett
Managing Director
Franny McCabe-Bennett (she/her) is an award-winning actor, playwright, educator, and producer. She has held administrative and artistic roles at Factory Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times, Toronto Fringe, The Next Stage Festival, Young People’s Theatre, SOULOTheatre, Soulpepper, George Brown College, and Sheridan College. Franny creates original work from a queer, neurodiverse, sober perspective and has toured her autobiographical solo shows across Canada and internationally.
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Aleena Faisal
Communications Manager
Aleena Faisal is a Hamilton-based communications professional working in the performing arts sector. She has over 7 years of experience as a magazine editor, specializing in Korean entertainment. A lifelong learner of media communications, Aleena's interests lie in creative storytelling through writing, photography, video, illustration, and design.
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Grace Lamarche
Development Coordinator
Grace Lamarche is a Cree/Metis theatre artist and arts administrator based in the GTHA. As a theatre artist, she is constantly striving to create original work that is blunt, cerebrally provocative and (above all else) FUN! She's worked at varying theatre companies/festivals throughout Ontario, including the Paprika Festival, Toronto Fringe Festival, Theatre Gargantua, Alumnae Theatre, The Theatre Centre and Theatre of the Beat.
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Taija Shonée Chung
ALERT Coordinator
TAIJA SHONÉE CHUNG is a Jamaican-Chinese multi-disciplinary artist, based in Toronto. A passionate actor, mover and creator, she's enthusiastic about work that explores our perception of others and ourselves in this ever-changing world. This is their third year working with Hamilton Fringe. She still enjoys singing loudly in her apartment.
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Donna-Michelle St. Bernard
Frost Bites Coordinator
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard aka Belladonna the Blest is an emcee, playwright and agitator. Her 54ology series includes The First Stone, Diggers, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Just Now, Click Click, Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Dark Love and Gas Girls. As director, she has worked on A Poem For Rabia (Shaffeeulah), The F Word (Cheesman/Miranda), Our Fathers, Sons, Lover and Little Brothers (Simamba), Job’s Wife (Nolan), Oops! (Feld). DM is associate artist at lemonTree Creations, artistic director of New Harlem Productions and playwright in residence at Theatre Aquarius.
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David Rundle
President
Fundraising, Governance, Finance Committees
Cairine Wilson
Vice President
Finance, Governance Committees
Traci-Ann Benjamin
Treasurer
Finance Committee (Chair)
Elizabeth Buchanan
Secretary
Governance Committee
Ruth Hatch
Director
Finance Committee
Ruth Flynn
Director
Fundraising, Governance (Chair) Committees
MacNeal Lashley
Director
Fundraising Committee
Abrar Mechmechia
Director
Fundraising Committee
