Animacy Theatre Collective > Animacy Theatre Collective Artists > Alexandra Simpson
Animacy Theatre Collective Theatre Artist - Alexandra Simpson

Alexandra Simpson

Alexandra Simpson is an interdisciplinary theatre artist, physical theatre creator, playwright, mask builder, sculptor, and activist. She has been the co-Artistic Director of Animacy Theatre Collective with Morgan Brie Johnson since 2017. Alexandra has a BFA in Performance Acting and an MFA in Documentary Media from Toronto Metropolitan University. She completed her doctorate in Environmental Studies at York University researching decolonial approaches to pipeline debates and embodied activism against extractive energy projects. Alexandra has trained in clown, bouffon, and mask with Karen Hines, John Turner, Sonia Norris, Deanna Fleysher, Martha Ross, and Susan Bertoia, among others and is passionate about comedy, satire, and imagination as a way to explore complex and intersectional issues and stories. Her work as an artist reflects her experience in and passion for boundary blurring art practices and queer narratives.
 

As mask builder and sculptor, Alexandra works with a variety of materials and methods including subtractive and additive sculpture, Worbla, leather, latex, found objects, fabric, and papier-mâché. She has trained with master mask makers including Loiic Nebrada (Brussels), Alessandra Faienza (Italy), and Sarah and Paola-Piizi Sartori (Italy), whose family’s work is known for revolutionizing the art of commedia dell’arte in the 20th century. She has also trained in body puppet making with Natacha Belova (Brussels) and in automata puppet making with the Puppet Mongers (Toronto). She was the co-lead on the Expressive Female Mask Residency, an intensive exploration of mask, gender, design and performance with Felice Amato, and Sarah and Paola Sartori in Abano Terme, Italy. As a visual artist, she takes an embodied and place-based approach and uses design to explore social and ecological relationships through an intersectional lens. She has built masks for all of Animacy’s original works as well as There Is No Word for Wilderness (Lisa Hamalainen), The Giving Tree (Trellis Arts), and Koli Kari (Pink Banana Theatre). Alexandra has led mask design and performance workshops for Scarborough Arts, Project Humanity, Workman Arts, and high schools across the GTA.

With Animacy, Alexandra has co-created and performed several new works including: Finding Home (nominated for 5 Dora Awards, winning Outstanding New Play, TYA Division, 2023), produced by Theatre Direct and directed by Rebecca Northan (2021) and Adam Paolozza (2022-2024); Pest Me Pet Me, a new horror-comedy using mask and clown about housing precarity in Toronto, directed by Justin Miller with dramaturgical support by Brian Quirt (Undercurrents Festival, 2023); Care (Public Energy’s Erring Festival, 2022); In Search Of (Next Stage Festival Digital Shorts, 2021); Upstream Downtown (Toronto Festival of Clowns, Toronto Fringe, 2018), directed by Martha Ross. Work in-development include: Rhino Lassies, as part of the Tarragon Greenhouse Residency and A Raccoon Solstice, as part of Bad Hats’ Bad New Ideas program. Most recently with Animacy, Alexandra co-designed and performed in Slow As Snails, a performance art piece presented at the Royal Ontario Museum ROM After Dark.