TEACHING ARTISTS
Jade Douris-O'Hara | Studio Director
CHOREOGRAPHER: MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY
TEXT COACH: SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
Jade Douris (she/her) is a Toronto born-and-raised, Halifax-based actor, Shakespeare coach, choreographer, singer, dancer, and instructor. She is the Studio Director and Artistic Associate at Shakespeare by the Sea, where she has spent ten seasons. SBTS: Alice (Alice in Wonderland), Olivia (Twelfth Night), Juliet (Romeo & Juliet), Ophelia (Hamlet), Anna Mae (Cinderelly), Helena/Francis Flute/Cobweb (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Dorothy (The Wizard of Oz), Biron (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Bianca (Othello), and Tinkerbell (Peter Pan). Other Theatre: Come From Away, The Wizard of Oz (Neptune Theatre), DANCE NATION (Keep Good Theatre/Heist), Celia in As You Like It and Viola in Twelfth Night (Shakespeare BASH’d), Amy in A Different Kind of Job (Theatre Aquarius). Film/TV: Everybody's Meg (Bell Fibe TV1), CBC’s According to Kids, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Trailer Park Boys: Jail. Teaching: Halifax Regional Arts All-City Shakespeare, Groove School of Dance, Star Potential Studios, Toronto StageCoach Schools, Upper Canada Repertory Company, and Sean Boutilier Academy of Dance. Choreography: ten seasons at Shakespeare by the Sea, Gale Force Theatre, Matchstick Theatre (which toured to Coal Mine Theatre and will go to the National Arts Centre in 2027), several works for Shakespeare BASH’d, Dauntless City Theatre, and Shakespeare at Play. Awards/Affiliations: Ten Merritt Award nominations, four nominations for Best Theatre Actor in The Coast's Best of Halifax. Resident Artist of Shakespeare BASH’d, winner of NOW Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award for Best Site-Specific Theatre Company in 2018 and 2019.
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Drew Douris-O'Hara | Artistic Director of Shakespeare by the Sea
DIRECTOR: SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
DIRECTOR: MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY
Drew (he/him) was Shakespeare by the Sea's youngest ever company member at the age of twelve and has been making theatre ever since. Credits include Theatre Aquarius, Neptune Theatre, Driftwood Theatre, Humber River Shakespeare, LiveBait Theatre, OneLight Theatre, Carousel Players, Lost and Found, Upper Canada Repertory Company, and over 30 productions for Shakespeare by the Sea. Drew is a Resident Artist of Toronto’s critically acclaimed Shakespeare BASH’d, for whom he has been an actor, director, producer, script editor and text coach. Drew served as Artistic Director of Toronto’s Everybody to the Theatre Company and co-created the original musical And Now, the End for Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. Drew was the acting instructor at StageCoach (Toronto East) and the resident Shakespeare teacher for Toronto’s Upper Canada Repertory Company. Drew holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ryerson School of Performance, where he graduated in 2014 and was the inaugural recipient of the Des McAnuff Award for Excellence in Classical Theatre. Upcoming: Les Misérables at Neptune Theatre in 2027.
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Eliza Rhinelander
MUSICAL DIRECTOR: MUSICAL THEATRE COMPANY & SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
INSTRUCTOR: SHAKESPEARE PRE-COMPANY
A proud graduate of the Studio @ SBTS, where she got bitten by the Shakespeare bug playing roles such as Hamlet and Macbeth, Eliza is overjoyed to pass on her love of Shakespeare to the next generation! A multidisciplinary music and theatre artist based in Halifax, she has written music for theatre, receiving Merritt Award nominations for Outstanding Original Score for her compositions for SBTS’s Twelfth Night (2024) and As You Like It: The Walkabout Experience (2025). She has worked with Neptune Theatre as Sound Designer for YPCO’s Our Town (2026). As a singer-songwriter, she has released her 2025 album The Precipice and 2024 EP Good Old Days, and played shows all across Canada. She is currently pursuing a degree in Theatre Studies and Early Modern Studies at Dalhousie University, where she has participated in student productions, directing As You Like It (2024) and The Oresteia (2026), and acting in The Birds (Peisetaerus), Art (Serge), Doctor Faustus (Mephistopheles) and Romeo & Juliet (Benvolio). Many thanks to Mom, Dad, and Lia for making it all happen!
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Siya Ajay
INSTRUCTOR: JUNIOR SHAKESPEARE & MUSICAL THEATRE, SENIOR MUSICAL THEATRE
Siya Ajay (she/her) is a local artist, university student, cafe hopper, and theatre educator at The Studio @ SBTS. She started off as a Studio student, and as a proud alum is so happy to be back in the building to teach! She has also been lucky enough to spend three seasons onstage, her credits including Rapunzel (Beauty and the Beast: A Fairy Tale Game Show Musical), Lucius/Soothsayer (Julius Caesar), and Pinocchio (Pinocchio). She spent 12 years training as a dancer at Maritime Dance Academy in many different styles. She also spent years learning piano, completing her Grade 8 RCM exams. She is very excited to get to work and share her love of theatre with the next generation!