Tuesday, Oct 17, 2023
1:30pm - 3:00pm
Lecture by:
Alex Mustakas
David Connolly
Join Artistic Director and CEO of Drayton Entertainment, Alex Mustakas, along with Director of Education and Disability Advocate, David Connolly, to hear about the goals of their new performing and technical arts training facility, The Drayton Entertainment Youth Academy.
Drayton Entertainment is a registered, not-for-profit charitable organization, and one of Canada’s most successful professional theatre companies. The company’s latest expansion comes in the form of a 10,000 square foot, state-of-the-art performing and technical arts training facility located in Waterloo called the Drayton Entertainment Youth Academy. There, a daily, concerted effort is made to help dismantle the systemic constructs that have served as cultural, financial, emotional and physical barriers to representation and participation in the arts. Year-round, all-ages programming is rooted in belonging and designed to create community and generational change.
Alex has directed over 100 productions for Drayton Entertainment and other theatre companies across Canada. Alex holds a Master’s Degree in Arts Administration from City University in London, England, and an Honorary Doctorate from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is the recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Media & Entertainment, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, the Maggie Bassett Award from Theatre Ontario, and the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal.
David is the Associate Artistic Director of Drayton Entertainment, Director of Education for their Youth Academy and Co-Chair of their EDI Committee. He is also an active Disability and Inclusion Advocate who is deeply committed to changing the statistic of being the only male amputee to have performed on Broadway. David is a recipient of The Ontario Premier’s Award of Excellence and speaker for the DEI Committee of the International Musical Theatre Educators’ Alliance. For the past four years, David has curated and moderated a disability inclusion panel at BroadwayCon in New York City to help develop actionable steps to improve disabled representation onstage, and has proudly served as a peer assessor for The Canada Council for the Arts.
Third Age Learning Kitchener Waterloo