samca

by natalia bushnik and kathleen welch

september 25 - october 5, 2024

“…eerie yet enticing world of folktales and witchcraft.”
— -Michael Bedford, Beyond James
“This is the best of what the fringe offers.”
— -Brian Morton, The View

Tread lightly...for the woods can hear you.

Riot King and Spindle Collective have come together to present SAMCA, a new site-specific horror musical like nothing else you’ve ever seen. Join us in the woods of Black Creek Pioneer Village and be transported back to 1800’s Romania to the most haunted forest in the world. Be sure to keep quiet cause these woods can hear you. With original music, dance, and an award winning script, this production is sure to creep down your spine and leave you with chills for the entire journey home!

SAMCA follows two sisters, Miha and Prava, as they come to terms with their sexuality, and the impact this has on their lives growing up in rural Romania in the late 1800’s. When the younger sister becomes pregnant following a sexual assault, the two are left to grapple with how this new-found motherhood changes their relationship. SAMCA explores how being a mother defines womanhood, and what happens when motherhood is thrust upon someone who does not want it. The audience is guided through the forest by the Zâne, spirits of the forest, to encounter dierent elements of the story climaxing in a horrifying, sensory nightmare!

The show opens on September 25th and runs until October 5th. Performances will be held on the North Property of Black Creek Pioneer Village (7060 Jane Street) and will begin at 7:30PM. The venue is a 10-15 minute walk south from Highway 407 TTC Station. There will be a SAMCA team member to meet patrons at the station until 7:15pm to guide everyone to the venue. Experience the final days of summer and get yourself ready for Halloween with this spooky, outdoor experience! With special thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts and the UWindsor Alumni Association, this team of award winning artists is not to be missed and SAMCA is their best work yet.

Tickets are available for purchase at https://samca.bpt.me/ using a pay-what-you-can-aord model. There are tickets available for $25, $35, or $50 and patrons are welcome to pay the price they choose.

This strange, horror musical will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen at the theatre!

SAMCA is being co-produced with Spindle Collective. Founded in 2021, Spindle Collective is a team of female-identifying and non-binary artists from varying disciplines who’ve banded together through their shared passion for the telling of immersive, original horror-theatre works. We believe in working collaboratively in a found space to create a cohesive world by interweaving dierent methods of storytelling and site-specific creation. Stay up to date with all things Spindle by following @spindlecollective!

SAMCA has been in development since 2021. In that time, SAMCA was a Top Ten Finalist in the 2021 Wildfire National Playwriting Competition, won First Place at the 2022 Hamilton Fringe New Play Contest, has received funding from the Ontario Arts Council as recommended by Nightswimming in 2022, Why Not Theatre in 2023 and from the Toronto Arts Council Project Fund in 2023. In July of 2023, a scaled down version of SAMCA was presented to sold-out audiences at the ‘In the Soil’ Festival as a special site-specific/roaming presentation in Burgoyne Woods.

The first creation workshop of SAMCA was held at the Red Sandcastle Theatre in Tkaronto in March of 2022. Directed by Brendan Kinnon, the workshop featured Kathleen Welch as 'Prava', Natalia Bushnik as 'Mihaela', and Madeline Elliot Kennedy, Xanath Fuentes, Andra Zlătar, Fae Alexander, Sydney Nicholson, and Charlin McIsaac as 'The Zâne'.

“The entire cast collectively dominates the stage and creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and dread.”
— Amanda Cosby-Nesbitt, Steel City Girl Reviews

creative team

Natalia Bushnik (she/her)

playwright, performer, producer

is a multidisciplinary artist and Dora Mavor Moore-nominated playwright based in Toronto, and founder of Spindle Collective. She is fascinated by immersive experiences that examine morally grey territories and unnerve audience members in their complicity. As a writer, her play, Just Across the Causeway, was produced through the National Theatre School’s #ArtApart Program, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council. A live version of Causeway was performed as a staged reading in the UK through Little Lion Theatre Company. Select theatre: PING! (Tarragon Theatre); SAMCA (Spindle Collective); I'll Be Back Before Midnight (Bruce County Playhouse) The Bathtub Girls (Kairos Theatre). Select film: Revenge of the Black Best Friend, peopleWatching (CBC Gem).

Kathleen Welch (she/her)

Playwright, Performer, Composer

is an actor, writer, composer, and founding member of Spindle Collective. She previously composed the music for Natalia Bushnik's play Just Across the Causeway, and is currently writing and composing her new play Bluebeard's Wives for Spindle Collective. Kathleen is a multidisciplinary theatre artist passionate about blending genres and incorporating things that are deeply uncomfortable into her work. She is one of the founders of the Dark Crop Festival, an all night camping theatre festival where artists from various disciplines come together to share new work. She recently directed and composed the music for Riot King's production of Suddenly Last Summer, and she loves playing with how sound and music can influence a story. In her limited spare time, Kathleen enjoys baking, embroidery, and mcgriddles. Select Acting Credits: SAMCA (Spindle Collective), Foul Play (Mysteriously Yours), The Three Little Pigs (Enchantment Theatre), Widow's Wedding Dress (OPIA Theatre Collective).

Brendan Kinnon (they/them)

director, producer

is a queer, non-binary theatre performer, producer, and director who is inspired every day by the beauty of the natural world. They have produced a variety of projects across the country including new-Canadian plays, audio dramas, short films, and festivals! They have worked as a producer with the Paprika Festival and Theatre of the Beat. Brendan is passionate about new play development and loves to work with writers and directors to bring a story to life for the first time.

Skye Rogers (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Hamilton, Ontario. With roots in dance, theatre, and music, her creative practice is dearly devoted to cultivating connection in both personal and communal spheres. She is a graduate of the Randolph College for the Performing Arts (2019) and Brock University (2022).

Skye’s artistry is a home made collage; a patchwork of the shapes and spaces of her surroundings and the rhythm and groove of her deep musical pulse. She has crafted a hybrid performance space-art gallery (Good Ritual, 2023) debuted two original contemporary dance pieces (The Body and The Brain, 2023; what is woman?, 2022), facilitated a community-wide joy-centered happening (PLAYGROUND, 2022), and is currently producing a series of movement workshops (Dance & Movement Days, 2023-24). She has partnered with Musical Stage Co. (RBC Apprenticeship, 2023-24), Stand Up Dance (ANATOMALIA, 2022) Suitcase in Point (Nest Residency, 2022), Kim Odine (LOVES Residency, 2022), and several others in the creation and expression of her work.

Skye is interested in making spaces for people to feel at home, and carving new creative pathways. She intends to create pertinence with her audiences, revelation with her collaborators, and invite absolutely anyone to discover their own artistry.

skye rogers

CHOREOGRAPHER

Andra Zlătar (they/she) is a musician, performer, and illustrator. Andra plays the singing saw (a carpentry saw played with a violin bow that evokes the haunting wail of the wind in the trees), banjo, guitar, and sings. Andra is passionate about creation that serves to act as a spell to open the doorways- to honour the land, their ancestors and traditions, to celebrate the bodies’ connection with the cycles of the seasons and death//life//death; To invoke the daemons of the crossroads- crossroads of paths meeting, of ancestry, of the past and future as they simultaneously exist within the present moment to weave our stories through time and sing us into the ancestors we are in the process of becoming. Andra just had premiere at Hot Docs as one of the main subjects in the documentary COVEN, a film exploring the relationship between Witchcraft and feminism. Andra’s band Willow Switch released their first album on Samhain and completed two music and pagan Festival tours across Ontario. You can find them on Spotify and Apple Music. Andra is currently in the process of recording a solo album at Half Moon Studio in Toronto. 

andra zlǍtar

VESTITIA

Originally from North Vancouver, BC, Beatrice Kwan (she/her) started her dance training at RNB Dance and Theatre Arts. Upon graduation, she was accepted into The Source Dance Company where she trained and performed under the direction of Joanne Pesusich. Craving adventure, Beatrice then made the move to Toronto to further her professional career. Some of her credits include: the 2015 Parapan Am Games Opening Ceremonies, “Touch of Psycho” (TO Fringe Festival), “Worldly Women” (Canadian Tour), “Legends of Horror” at Casa Loma, “The Great Big Boo” dance captain (Western Ontario Tour), “Century” music video (Feist), “Good // Don’t”, Wong Cho-Lam at Fallsview Casino, and “The 4th R” (Canadian Tour).  Beatrice’s passion for what she does shines through in all of her work; from teaching to performing, she aims to share the joy of dance.

BEATRICE KWAN

SINA

Jenna geen (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist. she works as a composer and sound designer for theatre and film, as well as an actor and contemporary classical vocalist. 

she performs regularly as an improvising vocalist, in concerts like Exit Points and Audiopollination, and has played venues like Wenona Lodge, and Array space. as a devised theatre creator, she is currently working with snork mimimi collective, creating a piece of interdisciplinary mixed-media art based inside of a volcano. 

sound design/composing credits: Lady M (1s1 theatre - summerworks 2023), Niizh (Native Earth), Queer Youth Cabaret (Soulpepper), asst. sound designer: Fairview (Canadian Stage).

you can listen to jenna’s music on spotify, apple music, and bandcamp under the moniker: moonwatcher. in march of 2024, jenna will be featured on the record label “age of leisure” as an ambient composer/vocalist, and the record will be available digitally and in casette form. you can also catch her performing in Audiopollination on march 9th, 2024.

JENNA GEEN

GLUVIANA

Sydney (they/she) is honoured to have been a part of the Samca story from the very start! Their other theatre credits include Medium Allison in Fun Home (Theatre Aurora), Ella in Cinderella, Wednesday in The Addams Family (Clarkson MT) and most recently Anya in Anastasia (Queensville Players). Sydney is over the moon to rejoin the Samca team as Valnomia alongside such a wonderful, talented group of people!

SYDNEY NICHOLSON

VALNOMIA

Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, Elif Coskun (she/her) is a multilingual actor, dancer, singer, and a pianist. She is a graduate of the Acting program at Sheridan College and University of Toronto Mississauga. Her selected theatre credits include Philomela in If We Were Birds (Theatre Erindale/Anita La Selva); Elle Woods in Legally Blonde (RC Theatre Company/Jake Becker); Ensemble in We Will Rock You (Etobicoke Musical Productions/Raeburn Ferguson); Nina in Vanya&Sonya&Masha&Spike (Alumnae Theatre/Carmen Osahor); and Christina/Music Captain in Fefu and Her Friends (Theatre Erindale/Brian Postalian). She is also very passionate about mathematical and behavioural sciences and holds a Minor in Psychology from University of Toronto. Her hobbies include working out, café-hopping, and dismantling the patriarchy. She is so excited to be a part of SAMCA, and thanks her friends, family, and mentors for their support!!

ELIF COŞKUN

SCORCOILA

Fae Alexander (she/her) is a singer/songwriter/actor  from Robinson Superior Treaty (Thunder Bay), but has been living in Toronto since 2021. Since graduating from Sheridan College’s Musical Theatre Performance program, Fae has been a part of many new musical workshops in Toronto, and loves the creation process behind musicals. This inspired her to start work on Trading Places, an original play with music which had its first workshop performance with Superior Theatre Festival in Thunder Bay in March of 2024. Currently, Fae is focusing on creating more original music, and working to release an EP by the end of 2024. Fae is so thrilled to be back as a Zane, after participating in the first workshop of SAMCA back in 2022, and thanks the Spindle Collective Team for inviting her back!

fae Alexander

NICOSDA

Camila Farah (she/her) is a queer Brazilian-Canadian musical theatre performer and costume designer. She is a Randolph College for the Performing Arts graduate. Credits as a performer include: Smokeville (Alumnae Theatre); Love You To Death (Small But Mighty); The Storyteller (No Strings Theatre); 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche (Unit 6 Collective); The Princess and The Pea; Cinderella; Rapunzel (TYT); Ghost Light (Za Hughes); SAMCA (Spindle Collective); Sunshine Boy; A Dispute (Randolph).

CAMILA FARAH

TIHA

Madeline Elliott Kennedy (she/her) is a Niagara made, Toronto based artist with focused training in Suzuki, Viewpoints and site specific devising. Madeline is so honoured to be a  part of SAMCA’s herstory and all its bloody generations to come. But most of all, she finds deep honour in this craft because it means portraying another human's story...or non-human. This is the adventure she was meant to embark this time around. She enjoys riddles, critter friendships and eating kimchi right out of the jar. Previous works include Wren in “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” (Unit 6 Collective), Starfish in “Rainbow Fish the Musical”(TYT Productions) and Little Stone in “Eurydice” (Pazzo Theatre Collective) Thank you always to Mom, Dad and Gabriella.

MADELINE KENNEDY

SLALO

Samca at the 2022 Springworks: Tapashta Digital Festival

We created a 'prologue' to SAMCA as a digital short for the 2022 Springworks 'tapashta' Digital Festival. Filmed remotely in both Toronto and Ireland, it was directed by Brendan Kinnon, featuring performances by Natalia Bushnik (‘Samca’, voiceover), Madeline Kennedy (‘Young Woman’), Kathleen Welch (‘Samca’). Music composed and performed by Kathleen Welch. Sound Design and editing by Jonathan Brown, with Video Editing by Natalia Bushnik.