I met the Chaplain at the "sally port." One guy ran the woodworking shop; another operated what looked like a tuck shop. One older man had a book in his hand and appeared to be on his way to teach a class. Everyone was very friendly. I wondered where the prisoners were. Well, of course, those men were the prisoners. What, exactly did I think prisoners looked like?

I run a theatre program for offenders every Friday evening at a medium security prison for men outside of Kingston. For the past several months, we have been working on an original piece of theatre incorporating verses from Alfred Noyse's The Highwayman and monologues written by the men. From what I have gleaned from Internet searches and talking to people involved with prison programming, there is only one other prison theatre program in Canada besides mine. I'd love to know if I'm wrong about that. I hope so.

For me, theatre is the scene I am most active in, both as a spectator and as a performer. It is also the scene I am most worried about. It broke my heart to see David Mirvish announce that the iconic Princess of Whales Theatre of King Street is shutting its doors, permanently.

At 17 I just enjoyed reversing the gender stereotypes of my peers. I was raised in a hierarchal, conservative area (read: small-town Ontario) in the 1960s. I recall a girl sitting behind me in my Gr. 12 business class piping up, "Boys cannot be secretaries!" Personally, I thought, was she for real?

The motion-picture adaptation of the beloved global stage sensation Les Misérables has been seen by more than 60-million people in 42 countries and in 21 languages around the globe and is still breaking box-office records everywhere in its 27th year. Yet, mere minutes in, I went oh, oh, something is off. This is overproduced to hell and back.

To say that the theatrical works of Young Jean Lee are thematically diverse is something of an understatement. They may tackle different issues, but what they do have in common is their origins: her work begins by putting herself into an uncomfortable situation and then writing/performing her way out of it. It's a unique working process that has resulted in some of the most celebrated experimental theatre on the continent.