Talk Is Free Theatre (TIFT) has enjoyed over twenty years of developing and producing theatre in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, and around the world. Our mission, both in our home seasons and through our many touring endeavours, is to produce a range of cutting edge theatre works such as those that are typically only found in major urban centres, and to connect them with as wide an array of people as possible–especially with new, non-urban audiences. As for our home operations in Barrie, TIFT is Central Ontario’s only professional theatre company with a full, traditional autumn-through-spring season.
Founded in 2002, our diversity of repertoire has included over 150 immersive experiences, off-centre musicals, reinterpretations of classics, and new works large and small–from a one-person show on a city bus to a major musical at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto–achieved through a nimble, entrepreneurial operating standard, striving every day to put artists first.
While have a reputation among artists and audiences alike for pushing boundaries with our work, TIFT has gained special notoriety for some of our most ambitious endeavours. In 2018, we produced the largest theatre experience in the world entitled The Curious Voyage. This three-day journey, during which each patron became the protagonist of their own story, transported participants (quite literally), from Barrie to London, UK, as part of the narrative. In 2020, Something Bubbled, Something Blue, commissioned by the National Arts Centre as an artistic response to COVID, our artists, performing inside Zorbs (inflated transparent plastic spheres), staged a fantasy wedding in a field. A filmed version of the piece has upwards of two million views on Facebook.
TIFT was included on the Globe and Mail list of 10 Best theatre projects in Canada in 2020 for Something Bubbled, Something Blue and in 2021 for Into the Woods. In 2022, we received five prestigious Dora Mavor Moore Awards for our immersive production of Sweeney Tood: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and previously, the Dora Award for Best Production of a Musical for Assassins in 2010.
TIFT also tours its productions extensively. Staged on a moving city bus, our production of Tales of an Urban Indian premiered in 2009 and has continued to tour across Canada, the US, and around the world ever since. Other tours include Possible Worlds to Munich, Assassins to The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg, The Wedding Party to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, The Tale of Ivan vs. Ivan to Serbia, England and Russia, and several productions to Argentina, Chile, Suriname, Fiji and across North America.
In addition to producing theatre, we work to improve the theatre industry with our numerous Service Projects, including Artist BIG (the first Basic Income Guarantee and consultation program for artists in Canada), the Canadian Musical Theatre Database, ARIA Translation Glasses, as well as a variety of mental health support initiatives, among others.
Some of the artists we have had the pleasure of working with at TIFT include Maja Ardal, Leslie Arden, Herbie Barnes, Mitchell Cushman, Darrell Dennis, Arlene Duncan, Cathy Elliott, Gabi Epstein, Jake Epstein, Alana Hibbert, Chilina Kennedy, Cyrus Lane, Craig Lauzon, Diana Leblanc, Marti Maraden, Mike Nadajewski, Richard Ouzounian, Lucy Peacock, Jennifer Phipps, Glynis Ranney, Michael Torontow and Jean Yoon, among many others.
ARKADY SPIVAK
Artistic Producer
Arkady Spivak was cited as a 2020 Canadian Arts Hero by the Globe and Mail. He founded Talk Is Free Theatre in Barrie in 2003, and is the company’s Artistic Producer, in charge of both artistic and administrative visions. Since TIFT's founding, Spivak has produced 152 works in Barrie and has toured nationally and internationally (most recently to New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and Suriname). In 2018, he produced one of the most ambitious theatre experiences in the world, entitled The Curious Voyage. It was a 3-day journey, during which each patron became the protagonist of their own story, and was transported, quite literally, from Barrie, Canada, to London, UK. TIFT is a recipient of Canada’s prestigious Dora Awards for its productions of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Assassins.
Spivak has served as a grants juror for the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. He is currently a juror for the Dora Mavor Moore Awards in the Musical Theatre division, and is a Board Member of Tourism Barrie. He has also been a volunteer mentor at Business and the Arts, helping emerging and small-scale companies with organizational development and sponsorship. Spivak is a recipient of the inaugural Barrie Arts Award and a Contribution to Tourism Award.
For the past 20 years, Spivak has mentored several young people and emerging artistic leaders. He has also initiated numerous special initiatives with the goal of strengthening the theatre ecology, such as the recent Artist Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) program. The first initiative of its kind for independent arts practitioners in Canada, it provides artists with a minimum basic income guarantee for three years.
MICHAEL TORONTOW
Communications Associate
While pursuing a double-degree program in Biochemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Ottawa, Michael began performing with local community theatre groups and realized he was headed down the wrong career path. He smartened up, earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Arts Administration, and immediately moved to Toronto. After beginning his professional acting career on the US National Tour of Mamma Mia!, Michael returned to Canada to play Link Larkin in the original Canadian company of Hairspray and has been gracing stages from coast to coast ever since.
Michael has performed in and directed several productions with TIFT, including the adventurous The Curious Voyage, the award-winning Every Brilliant Thing, the critically acclaimed Into the Woods, and the Dora Award-winning production of Sweeney Todd. In 2019, he began working alongside Arkady Spivak in an administrative capacity, taking on more curatorial roles involving season casting and programming. Under the auspices of TIFT and with support from Patrick Street Productions in Vancouver, Michael is also Project Manager and Developer for the forthcoming Canadian Musical Theatre Database, an online platform to champion the production of Canadian creations at home and around the world and foster a more connected national musical theatre community.
Casey Farley – Chair
Michael Collins
Jenivieve de Vries
Casey George
Kim Kieller – Vice Chair
Peter Koetsier – Treasurer
Susan Morrison
Jennifer Podemski
Samuel Robertson
Founding Chair – Joe Anderson
