Welcome to Equity in Theatre

Michelle Urbano is co-founder and co-artistic director of Artichoke Heart. She is a producer, puppeteer, puppet builder and actor. She produced, devised and performed in Artichoke Heart's "cirqular" (Toronto Fringe & Best of Fringe 2014) and "We Walk Among You" (Tarragon Theatre and Mainline Theatre, 2014). Performing credits include "Unintentionally Depressing Children’s Tales" (Summerworks 2014, Caterwaul Theatre), "You Can Sleep When You’re Dead" (Theatre Lab), "Pierrot and the Moon" (Puppets Up! Festival, Metaphysical Theatre), "Autogeddon" (Pandemic Theatre/Steven Bush, Fiona Griffiths), "Year 25 Vigil" (Humber Theatre/Raymond Bobgan, Karin Randoja) and "wasted on the young" (Humber Theatre/Nina Lee Aquino) for which she not only acted but also composed and performed the musical score. She is an artist in residence at Mermaid Theatre o f Nova Scotia and was a Cahoots HotHouse playwright in 2012/13. She was a member of the Hope Blitz team (creating and performing in both shadow puppetry and clown shows), an installment of Theatre Passe Muraille’s Theatre Beyond Walls initiative. She has built puppets for Suitcase Theatre, Pandemic Theatre, Banjo Puppets and attended the New England Puppetry Intensive hosted by the Old Trout Puppet Workshop; with whom she was hired to build masks for a dance show performed at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. She is a recent graduate with honours from the Humber College Theatre Performance program and holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from McMaster University, where she won the McMaster School of the Arts’ Best Female Actor award in 2007.