Anthea (Thea) Fitz-James

Thea Fitz-James is part academic and part theatre practitioner. She holds a PhD in Theatre & Performance Studies from York University, where she wrote about knitting and textiles in activism and performance. Research interests include: queer and feminist approaches to theatre; performance studies and theatre historiography; fringe festivals, and other transient/transnational performance spaces; and the marginalized body in 21st Century performance. Her most recent contribution to academia include a number of articles on consent culture in the Canadian Fringe circuit, and her work as co-editor on CTR's Theatre After the Explosion, which curated articles on performance in the wake of summer 2020.

Thea is also a theatre maker, performance artist, and storyteller. She's created work with Secret Theatre in Halifax; Summerworks, FADO, Next Stage Theatre Festival, and Feminist Art Collective in Toronto; and the School of Making/Thinking in New York. Her solo performance piece, NAKED LADIES, made international news when it was banned in Singapore in 2017, and her other solo show, Drunk Girl, has toured internationally. In 2017/2018, she was one of the resident playwrights with Factory Theatre’s Natural Resources, and in 2019 and 2021, she wrote, performed and directed two contemporary political pantomimes for TYT Theatre with collaborator Evan Harkai. She is currently writing a contemporary Canadian pandemic comedy, working with dramaturgy Matt McGeachy.

Finally, Thea has a wide and varied career in arts administration and theatre production. From 2020-2022, she was a program manager for Artscape Toronto Inc, creating their online support platform artsunite.ca as well as producing and directing the artsUNITE Leadership Masterclass Series. She has curated performance festivals for the Cucalorus Festival and has taken on leadership roles in many grassroots performance organizations, including hub14, TYT Theatre, Dark Day Monday and Red Clay Arts. She is continuing her work in arts programming as a program consult for Artscape, advising on program strategy and design, EDI frameworks in programming, and project management.

Thea Fitz-James identifies as part of the queer community (as a pan/bi sexual), and part of the ‘Mad’ community, as manic, and is a white, cis female settler.