Bound To Create Theatre

Bound to Create Theatre was formed in 2003 by theatre artists Lauren Brotman and Jack Grinhaus. B2C believes that theatre has an essential role and responsibility to its culture and its society. In Canada we are in need of it to understand our ever-growing country, still searching for an identity, which changes every day. Our work encompasses various art forms and styles of theatre and fuses them into a wild new world that is both familiar and unfamiliar. We strive for a full theatrical experience that can speak in all the languages of the theatre and can also find its social relevance to its community and abroad.

Lauren is an actor, playwright, and theatre creator. As an actor, recent credits include:  Split Screen (Nightwood Theatre- Directors Summit), Apricots (dir. Adam Lazarus, SummerWorks 2009) - Outstanding Performance- NOW Toronto; Ten Green Bottles (dir. Mark Cassidy).  Other credits: And By The Way Miss (Dora Award Outstanding Ensemble TYA-Theatre Direct/URGE); Twelfth Night (Humber River Shakespeare Co.- dir. Kevin Hammond)/European Tour; Antigone (Theatre Inferno), No Exit (SummerWorks); A Flea In Her Ear –U.S. (Soulpepper Theatre), Tabula Rasa/Toronto Without Words/24U2C/Rougher Trade (Bound to Create Theatre).  She is a recipient of the Christopher Plummer Fellowship Award through which she trained and performed at the Globe Theatre in London, England as one of their ten International Fellows. Lauren has performed in many staged readings, namely at The Canadian Stage Company, The AfriCanadian Playwrights’ Festival, and Theatre Passe Muraille’s Buzz Festival.

As a playwright, Lauren is currently developing her two new plays; Jenny’s Room (LAB CAB and The Canadian Stage Company’s Raw! Raw! Raw! Festival of New Works. Jenny’s Room has received Theatre Creator’sReserve Grants from both The Canadian Stage Company and Factory Theatre. Lauren is also co-creating, with Amber Godfrey, Even for Now (Creator’s Reserve - Nightwood Theatre and Theatre Direct,) and wasworkshopped in 2009 (director Maja Ardal, dramaturge Catherine Hernandez.)

As an artist also committed to youth, Lauren is Outreach Director at Pleiades Theatre through which she directed the youth-based The Power of One Project, and recently co-directed (with Bea Pizano) Afamefuna! for Theatre Revolve. She has facilitated many workshops and talkbacks around the province, namely through Pleiades Theatre, Theatre Direct and The Canadian Stage Company and is a recipient of the Jessica Fraser Award  for Outstanding Contributions to Theatre for Young Audiences.

Lauren is a graduate of the University College Drama Program, The Soulpepper Training Company and has trained in a variety of styles: Classical Theatre, Multidisc Theatre, Contemporary, Collective Creation, Devised Theatre Making, and Suzuki-Viewpoints (SITI Company).  She was a 2007-2008 BASH! Artist (The Canadian Stage Company ) and is a founding member hum and glow theatre (with Amber Godfrey) and of Bound to Create Theatre. Lauren is an Ambassador for World Stage.  Upcoming: The Complex: A Toronto Tale

Jack Grinhaus has worked in the theatre for most of his life. Primarily a director, Jack has also worked in various streams of theatre. He was technical director at the Diesel Playhouse’s Cabaret Space and the Children’s Peace Theatre Camp, a playwright that has been produced Off Off Broadway, an award winning actor with numerous credits in the city and abroad, a contributor to the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia as well as a theatre columnist for BlogTo. He possesses an MFA and BA Honours in Theatre from York University’s Theatre program as well as an Associate Degree in Acting from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, and has studied intensely with renowned artists Uta Hagen, Jackie Bartone, R.H. Thomson, Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, Eda Holmes and Jim Warren.

Assistant Director Credits: ART (Morris Panych/ Canadian Stage Company) Seven (Sarah Stanley/City of Wine Festival/ Theatre Passe Muraille) Twelfth Night (Kevin Hammond/Humber River Shakespeare Company)

Directing Credits: For Bound To Create Theatre - Toronto Without Words I (Squiggfest Festival), Jenny's Room (Factory Theatre Lab Cab); New York – Dark Rapture (Theatre 22/Landslide Prod) The Grownup’s Playground(Naked Players) For York - Much Ado About Nothing, The Start of Man and The North. Other; Carmen(Opera Lirica Italiana), Now or Never (Yonge Street Mission), Jack is currently directing his play The Complex: A Toronto Tale for both the Festival of Creation at the Canadian Stage Company as well as at the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival.

Acting: For Bound To Create: Toronto Without Words I, 24U2C, Rougher Trade and Tabula Rasa. For York: The Bundle (Alan Dilworth), The Bewtiched (Nigel Shawn Williams) Other Theatre: Toronto Noir (Summerworks 2009/ Heather Davies/Outstanding Ensemble - NOW Toronto), The Off Off Broadway production of, The Grownups Playground, the U.S National tour of the original musical, Tour De France, Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs Live (Mr. Jimmy Prod.), The Mousetrap at the Toronto Truck Theatre and the Dora award winning production of Romeo and Juliet Remixed. Jack is the recipient of a 2002 THEA award for his performance as Stanley Jerome in Brighton Beach Memoirs for Amicus Prod. and currently facilitates acting and creative ensemble workshops throughout Ontario.