Gale Force Theatre was started by Mount Allison University graduates, Franziska Glen and Lily Falk. It was in blustery Sackville, NB in 2015 over hot bowls of ratatouille that Lily and Franziska began to dream up plans of creating theatre together that were as handmade as their ratatouille, as strong and sturdy as the winds that whipped off the Tantramar Marshes and as filled with heart as their friendship.
Based both in Kjipuktuk/Halifax and Upper Lahave, Nova Scotia, their work spans productions for children and adults that includes new works, devised productions, and puppetry. Their production Crypthand, written by Lily Falk, won Outstanding Emerging Production at the Nova Scotia Merritt Awards (2022) and the Playwright Guild of Canada’s Emerging Playwright Award (2022). For younger audiences, Gale Force recently premiered While We Wait, a contemplative and playful puppetry performance about a child’s perspective about living with change. They also regularly perform Lupinder’s Tent, a pop-up performance that takes place in a beautiful patchwork tent. Alongside creating and producing new work, Gale Force Theatre also runs outdoor theatre making courses for teens and pre-teens in partnership with local outdoor centres. Gale Force Theatre is an artistic associate with the River Clyde Pageant and frequently collaborates with North Barn Theatre.
Franziska Glen
Franziska Glen (she/her) is an actor, puppeteer and theatre maker living in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. She is co-founder of Gale Force Theatre and is interested in theatre for young audiences, puppetry and in creating new work. Most recently she performed in Bouée with Satellite Théâtre (Moncton, NB) and Crypthand with Gale Force Theatre (Halifax, NS) which won the Theatre Nova Scotia Outstanding Emerging Production Award. She has worked and collaborated with the River Clyde Pageant, Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia and North Barn Theatre Collective. Franziska is currently working on two new projects with Gale Force Theatre, Lupinder’s Tent, an interactive show for young audiences performed in a patchwork tent, and While We Wait, a puppet show for children. She is the winner of the 2021 Theatre Nova Scotia Emerging Artist Award.
Lily Falk
Lily Falk (she/her) is an emerging theatre artist living in Kjipuktuk and co-artistic director of Gale Force Theatre. Her first play, Crypthand won the RBC Emerging Artist Award through Playwrights Guild of Canada in 2022 and the 2019 Halifax Fringe Best Original Script award. It had productions at Ship’s Company Theatre and will be Neptune Theatre’s Young Company show in April 2025 as well as with Gale Force. Lily is particularly interested in creating work in unconventional settings as well as for young audiences. She co-created a show for toddlers that was delivered to parks across Nova Scotia by tandem bike. In 2024, she co-created Lupinder’s Tent, a miniature, immersive performance for a small-sized audience in a beautiful patchwork tent that tells the story of a wetland’s lost and found department. Her frequent collaborators include North Barn Theatre Collective and the outdoor community arts spectacle: The River Clyde Pageant where she’s an artistic associate. She runs a preteen outdoor theatre ensemble with Gale Force co-director, Franziska Glen where they support young theatre artists in creating original plays in local parks. Lily’s artistic practice weaves together the outdoors and community building as a way to illuminate our interconnectedness, share our joy, and build resiliency.
Ali Joy Richardson – Collaborator
Ali Joy Richardson is a writer, director, and therapist based in her home province of Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia after nearly a decade in Tkaronto/Toronto. Her solo show How To Be FEARLESS! (With Roxy Roberts), about an unorthodox motivational speaker/self-defence coach, was nominated for a 2023 Merritt Award for Outstanding Independent Production. Ali is the book writer/co-lyricist of Believers (with composer/co-lyricist Kevin Wong), a musical about two girls who fall in love in a Catholic youth group, which was developed in Sheridan College’s 2024 First Drafts program. She is the director of a new musical in development, Cowboy Tempest Cabaret (The Musical Stage Company), which initiated her into the punk rock world of disability arts practice and was featured in the 2024 Canadian Festival of New Musicals. Ali is the director/book-writer of One Deep Breath (Education Arts Canada), a quartet of musicals about mental health for preteens, which has toured to over 50,000 students. Her play A Bear Awake in Winter (about a high school band class in Dartmouth) was published by Scirocco Drama. Ali is thrilled to be reuniting with Gale Force Theatre after providing dramaturgical support for their serialized audio drama Honey Harbour and their play for young audiences, While We Wait. www.alijoyrichardson.com
Laura Stinson – Collaborator
Laura (she/they) crafts images from both found and traditional materials. These creations become narratives, characters and atmospheres in a variety of theatrical spectacles. She began her career in puppetry with Bread and Puppet Theater in 2016 where she apprenticed under Peter Schumann. In addition to studying puppet animation in Nova Scotia with the Mermaid Theatre she also studied bunraku puppet building techniques with the Swedish master Thomas Lundqvist, puppetry performance with Joan Baixas of Barcelona and textile construction and puppet mechanics with Compagnie Coatimundi of Châteaurenard, France. In 2017 she collaborated with Noella Murphy and Julia Walker to form A Road Less Gravelled Productions, which has performed puppet shows at art festivals throughout Nova Scotia. After four years working as a touring member and subsequent resident puppeteer for Bread and Puppet, Laura co-founded North Barn Theatre in 2020. Since returning to Canada, she has worked as a designer and puppet builder for Festival Antigonish Summer Theatre, Ship’s Company Theatre, Mulgrave Road Theatre, Gale Force Theatre and Villains Theatre. She currently lives and makes art in Mi’kma’ki.
Erin Donovan – Collaborator
Percussionist, composer and interdisciplinary artist Erin Donovan is the Artistic Director of Hear Here Productions hearhereproductions.ca. Creating work for abandoned mines, glacier lakes, bunkers, shipping containers, public parks and theatre spaces, Hear Here strives to create inclusive experiences that invites audiences of all ages to listen more deeply. Recent commissions include Cape Spear 24 (a large-scale interdisciplinary outdoor work for music and dance at North America’s most easterly point for Newfoundland’s Sound Symposium), This Tree Listens (an outdoor performance and workshops for Open Ears Festival in Kitchener) and many collaborative works with Susanne Chui (Halifax-based Mocean Dance), including Burnwater, a series of outdoor films called Woodlight (with poet Alice Burdick), and Resting Space for Halifax’s Mayworks Festival with her interdisciplinary trio Becoming Old Growth (with poet Basma Kavanagh). As a percussionist she has performed with the Canadian Opera Company, the Calgary Philharmonic, Symphony Nova Scotia, Alkali Collective and her trio Saltwater Percussion (with Rob Power and Bill Brennan). Erin lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia.
Kurtis McAllister – Collaborator
Kurtis McAllister is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who has been heard on stages throughout Canada with his project Kurtis Eugene. Kurtis’ first love is composition and this led him to hone his skills as an audio engineer and producer. He has collaborated with Maritime artists and non-profits to produce everything from full-length albums to podcasts. His passion for improvisation and sound experimentation find their outlet in his work as a music workshop facilitator and teacher, focusing on the cultivation of creativity and play. The common thread in all of Kurtis’ work is in his hope to share the power of music and to inspire a sense of connection, empathy and joy within our communities.
Jane Wells – Collaborator
Jane Wells grew up in Cascumpeque, PEI but has spent the past 20 years in Toronto working as a writer, actor and director. In addition to her own work with Number Eleven Theatre and as a solo theatre artist, Jane has directed many community-based performances, working primarily with school-age children. She has taught physical theatre workshops for all ages, to professional actors, students, and community theatre groups across Canada.
Jane has been working with the River Clyde Pageant since 2017, leading drama workshops for children in the community. These sessions serve as a springboard for children to join the Pageant as performers; over the past three years, workshops have helped forge a youth ensemble with a powerful creative voice. Jane is the co-director of The River Clyde Pageant.
Gale Force Theatre 