The Artist Lab Series

The NA LAB is Necessary Angel's artistic platform supporting artists and their development through residencies, commissions, workshops, classes, roundtables, and special projects — all within a structured setting with professional oversight. Mentorship and training are central to Necessary Angel's vision of how great theatre is made, and the LAB reflects our ongoing commitment to nurturing the next generation of theatre artists.

As part of this growing platform, NA is expanding the LAB this June with the Artist Lab Series — a week-long program of workshops and roundtables connecting emerging artists with working professionals across disciplines. The series features Sabryn Rock and Alan Dilworth in directing, Kanika Ambrose in playwriting, Shannon Lea Doyle in design, and Kristina McNamee in producing.

The Artist Lab Series takes place on June 22 - 25, 2026 at 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario. To attend a workshop part of the Artist Lab Series, please register at Eventbrite. If you have questions about the series, registration, or attending, please reach out to Producing Assistant, Jane-Leigh Jamieson at jane.leigh@necessaryangel.com.

Kanika Ambrose | Adapting Text for the Theatre

Participants in this workshop will be registered for and attend all three sessions.

Location: 401 Richmond Street West
Schedule:
Session 1 | Tuesday, June 23 at  10am-1pm,
Session 2 | Wednesday, June 24 at 10am -1pm
Session 3 | Thursday, June 25 at 10am -1pm
Fee: $50

Join playwright and Necessary Angel Associate Artistic Director, Kanika Ambrose, for an Adapting Text for the Theatre workshop. Kanika will go through the process that she uses to create plays from found text, as she works with participants on beginning the process in their own work. The goal of the workshop is for newer playwrights or playwright’s new to adaptation to build skills to start or improve their process of adapting work.

From Kanika:
You may be curious about adapting a poem, novel or other text but don’t know where to begin. You may have already begun and want to explore some practical tools as you continue in your process. From what factors into selecting a piece to seeing it through to a draft, I’ll guide participants through the processes that I continue to work with. The group will be small so that each participant will have individually focused time and attention to their work. I ask that participants come with a piece they want to work on or a few pieces that they are considering so that we can jump right in and have some work done by the end of our time together.

Kanika Ambrose is a two-time Dora Award winning playwright, opera librettist, and screenwriter.  Her plays our place and Truth both earned Dora Awards for “Outstanding New Play” in 2023 and 2024 respectively. She is a graduate of Canadian Film Centre’s Bell Media Primetime TV Program (2022-2023). Other notable works: Plays: The Christmas Market (Crow’sTheatre/Studio 180/bcurrent, 2025), Moonlight Schooner (Necessary Angel/Canadian Stage, 2025), Opera: Of the Sea (2023) with composer Ian Cusson (Tapestry Opera/Obsidian Theatre). Concert: The Big Easy: Music of New Orleans (2024) (Soulpepper), writer of two pieces on Juno nominated classical album Known to Dreamers: Black Voices in Canadian Arts Song (2021) (Canadian Art Song Project), Tak-tak-shoo with composer Rene Orth (Opera Philadelphia). Kanika is Associate Artistic Director of Necessary Angel Theatre Company. This year she is Tarragon Theatre’s OAC Playwright in Residence.

Shannon Lea Doyle | Design as Dramaturgy

This workshop will run twice. Participants can choose which date to attend.

Location: 401 Richmond Street West
Schedule:
Workshop 1 | Wednesday, June 24 at 10am-1pm
Workshop 2 | Thursday, June 25 at 2pm-5pm
Fee: $25

Design as Dramaturgy. An exploration of how design shapes meaning on stage. Part lecture and part hands on experimentation. This workshop will use local performance venues and recent production models to illuminate both practical and conceptual design considerations. Together we will investigate the dynamism of movement, light, and stage architecture. We will touch on the mundane and the epic; classic texts and works in progress; our individual and collective subconscious. This seminar will be useful for anyone thinking about bringing a story or a feeling into three dimensional space but perhaps especially emerging directors, playwrights and designers.

Shannon Lea Doyle is an award winning scenographer from Toronto. Her work moves between collaborations with independent artists on new work and reimagining classic texts, musicals and operas. She holds a BFA in Sculpture and Installation from OCAD University and studied scenography in the Soulpepper Academy under the mentorship of Lorenzo Savoini. She is a founder of Triga Creative: a design company dedicated to raising the profile of ecoscenography on national and international stages. Recent theatre credits include: The Comeuppance, The Seagull (Soulpepper Theatre), Moonlight Schooner (Necessary Angel / Canadian Stage), There is Violence (Buddies in Bad Times /Native Earth), Narnia (Bad Hats Theatre), Way Out There, Jesus Christ Superstar, Oliver! (YES / Sudbury Theatre Centre), Interior Design, El Terremoto (Tarragon Theatre), Dialogues des Carmelites (Glen Gould School), Truth (YPT).

Alan Dilworth | Embodied Text Based Practice: Thought, Image, Character and Action

This workshop will run for three sessions. Participants can register for one or all three sessions.

Location: 401 Richmond Street West
Schedule:
Session 1 | Tuesday, June 23 at 2-5pm
Session 2 | Wednesday, June 24 at 2:30-5:30pm
Session 3 | Thrusday, June 25 at 2-5pm
Fee: $25 or $50 for three sessions

Join Artistic Director Alan Dilworth for a short deep dive into text base practice where participants will be inhabiting and exploring text. This workshop is for actors, directors, storytellers, and anyone who is curious about cracking open thoughts, words, ideas and stories.

Alan Dilworth is the Artistic Director of Necessary Angel Theatre Company. He is known for his award-winning direction of contemporary tragedies and re-invented classics. He has brought over twenty-five new Canadian plays to the stage including his own SummerWorks Jury Prize winning The Unforgetting, Erin Shields’ SummerWorks Jury Prize and Governor General Award winning If We Were Birds, Andrew Kushnir’s Toronto Critics Award winning The Middle Place,and Pamela Sinha’s multiple Dora Award winning Crash. These along with his work on Edward Bond's epic masterpieces The Bundle and Human Cannon have established Alan as a director of sometimes harrowing but always humanizing productions, known for their stage imagery and “operatic minimalism”. In 2013, he was awarded the inaugural Christopher Plummer Fellowship Award of Excellence for his work on classical text. Alan has directed across Canada, The United States, and Europe.

Kristina McNamee | The Working Producer: The Art of Getting it Made

This workshop will run twice. Participants can choose which date to attend.

Location: 401 Richmond Street West
Schedule:
Workshop 1 | Monday, June 22 at 10-1pm
Workshop 2 | Thrusday, June 25 at 10am -1pm
Fee: $25

What does it actually take to produce a play? Whether you're building your first fringe show on a shoestring or eyeing a mainstage production in a large theatre, the fundamentals of producing are the same, the stakes just get higher.

Join producer Kristina McNamee for a breakdown of the full lifecycle of a theatre production, from the first rights negotiation to final box office reconciliation. Drawing on her years of professional experience, Kristina covers everything a working or aspiring producer needs to know: how to build and manage a critical path, how to assemble a creative and technical team, how union obligations shape your budget and your timeline, and how to construct a budget that tells the truth on both the expense and revenue side.

Topics include production logistics, marketing, partnerships, contracting, rehearsal and technical process, communications, and audiences. This workshop is designed for emerging producers, theatre artists moving into production roles, and anyone who wants to understand how professional theatre actually gets made — and how to scale that knowledge from a festival slot to a main stage show.

Kristina McNamee (she/her) is a Toronto-based producer, arts administrator, and manager with over 15 years of experience in the Canadian theatre industry. Currently serving as General Manager at Necessary Angel, Kristina brings a rare combination of creative, financial, and strategic expertise to every project she touches. She began her career as an independent producer and designer, bringing new work to SummerWorks and the Toronto Fringe Festival, before spending seven years as Producer at Crow's Theatre — where she was a driving force behind the organization's ten-fold growth and the opening of Streetcar Crowsnest. Over the course of her career, Kristina has produced numerous mainstage productions and collaborated with some of Canada's most vital theatre companies, including Aluna Theatre, Nightwood Theatre, Canadian Stage, Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre, Soulpepper Theatre, The National Arts Centre, The Shaw Festival, Arts Club, and The Stratford Festival. She is deeply committed to supporting the long-term goals of the artists and organizations she works with — as both a thoughtful leader and a proactive collaborator.

Sabryn Rock | Directing New Work: The Craft of Creative Collaboration

This workshop will run twice. Participants can choose which date to attend.

Location: 401 Richmond Street West
Schedule:
Workshop 1 | Monday, June 22 at 2-5pm
Workshop 2 | Wednesday, June 24 at 2:30-5:30pm
Fee: $25

Directing an existing work or classic comes with plenty of challenges, frequently related to offering a fresh vision or interpretation of a well-known play. Alternatively, preparing to premiere new work with a playwright collaborator creates entirely different opportunities and challenges for a director. In this seminar, actor/director Sabryn Rock will offer guidance and insight into the creative process of directing and acting in new work with emphasis on the collaborative process with playwright, designers, and producers to bring a brand new vision to life. Bring a play in development, or learn using samples from Sabryn's experience. Either way you will leave this workshop with practical strategies to work on your own premiere.

Sabryn Rock is an award-winning actor and director who has worked across the country on both screens and stage. As a director: Moonlight Schooner (Necessary Angel/CanStage), Shaniqua in Abstraction (Crow’s/paul watson productions), Truth (YPT), our place (Cahoots/TPM). Credits as an actor include Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary (Crow’s), Is God Is (Obsidian/Necessary Angel/NAC), The Royale & Rose (Soulpepper), Fun Home (Musical Stage/Mirvish) and Passing Strange (Obsidian/Musical Stage). Sabryn also has numerous credits in animation, film & tv and has narrated many audiobooks. She has been nominated for several Dora awards as an actor and director and won the Toronto Theatre Critics award for her work in The Royale. Sabryn was NA’s 2024 Artist in Residence. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, the Birmingham Conservatory at Stratford and the Canadian Film Centre’s Actors’ Conservatory. She is currently directing Love Us Most for Here for Now Theatre in Stratford.