Claire Calnan
Outreach Associate

Claire is a Toronto-based theatre artist and a graduate of the conservatory-style program at Studio 58 in Vancouver. She has worked extensively in Toronto since she returned here with her solo show, Changing Habits, in 2001.   Claire is the co-Artistic Director of tiny bird theatre with Jenny Young. The company has produced three critically acclaimed shows since its inception in 2003 including the myth Inanna, written and directed by Calnan and staged outdoors in the 2004 Fringe with a cast of a dozen actors, singers and musicians. Voted Most Outstanding Production by NOW Magazine and cited as “the surprise hit of the Fringe” by CBC radio, it went on to receive a critically-acclaimed remount in Victoria, BC in August 2005.

Claire works extensively in creation-based theatre. She co-created Chekhov’s Heartache, the final piece in the Chekhov cycle produced by the award-winning Theatre Smith-Gilmour and is currently working with the company on a new piece based on the works of Katherine Mansfield. She co-directed the last two collaboratively created productions at the Children’s Peace Theatre and is working on the development of a dance theatre piece called Appetite with the newly formed Exchange Rate Collective which will debut at the Summerworks Theatre Festival in August.  Her additional performance credits include: Past Perfect (Tarragon Theatre), Ten Obstructions (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre), Duel at Dawn and New Canadian Kid (Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People), The Demimonde and Chasing Krinko’s (tiny bird theatre), Playing Around with Ibsen (Theatre Columbus) and Dismantled and A vs. B (Rhubarb! Festival). 
In 2005, Claire co-founded the A.M.Y. (Artists Mentoring Youth) Project with Pasha Mckenley, a program designed to affect a culture of underserved youth by bringing them out to see theatre and engaging them in activities of healthy, creative self-expression. She directed their inaugural production, Behind the Brickz, in 2006 and is currently directing the second production, I Am Her, which will debut at Theatre Passe Muraille this spring.