Sleuth

SHAW 2026: Director for Sleuth; 5th season. I was born in Awali, Bahrain, raised in Edmonton, and now call Toronto home. Before moving to Canada I wasn’t exposed to a lot of theatre, but my parents encouraged my siblings and me to sing as an extracurricular activity. Little did they know that all three of us would become actors. In grade six, I performed in my school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. I played the Cowardly Lion, because I was so nervous during the audition that I kept stuttering. In the show, I had to faint – this made the audience laugh and I’ve been trying to make people laugh ever since.

SHAW 2026: Original Music & Sound Designer for Sleuth. Gzowski enjoys the mystery of working at Shaw on all their recent Sherlock Holmes productions and Wait Until Dark. He has also worked on Mahabharata, Dracula, The Divine, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Too True to be Good. Elsewhere he’s worked with Ex Machina on Stratford’s Macbeth and the Côté Dance Hamlet, and at New York’s City Center, National Ballet, NAC, Arts Club, Soulpepper, Tarragon Theatre and a few others. Recently he has started a PhD in Digital Media. John is grateful to work with Daniel Tessy as Assistant Sound Designer.

SHAW 2026: Assistant Stage Manager for Sleuth; 4th season. My uncle and aunt are long-time residents of Niagara-on-the-Lake. They’ve built their life together here – owning and operating a B&B, a retail shop, and a restaurant. They became quiet pillars of the community, though most people wouldn’t recognize their names. They are far more likely to be recognized walking my dog, Larry: not for the businesses they owned or the relationships they nurtured, but for their association with a charismatic, photogenic dog who chases squirrels. I suppose I’m not so different. Much of my own work happens behind the scenes, steady and unseen. Except when I’m spotted beside the charismatic, photogenic actors I support every day onstage.

SHAW 2026: Lighting Designer for Sleuth. I walked into the theatre at my high school and never left. Designing lighting for theatre has become my passion and also, luckily, my career. The teamwork, creativity, and dedication of everyone involved in producing a show has inspired me since the first show I ever worked on. Working with light is a unique challenge, and I am grateful to be able to share my work at the Shaw Festival again this season.

SHAW 2026: Associate Production Stage Manager; 18th season. I hail from small-town Southern Ontario, but since completing my Bachelor of Honours Drama at the University of Waterloo I have worked all over Canada. Niagara-on-the-Lake has been my home base for 17 years and I always love how early spring flowers bloom here and how it signals the return to rehearsals and loads of life at the festival. I love delving into the intellectual work of the plays we do here or being in music and choreography rehearsals with so many incredibly talented people. It’s hard not to love your workday when it’s filled with singing, dancing and tons of laughter.

SHAW 2026: Costume Designer for Sleuth. Several years ago, while working on a production with some children in the cast, I met the mother of one of these actors – a young girl who had never acted before. The girl was ecstatic to be trying on her costume for the first time. During the fitting, she turned to me, very seriously, and asked, “Is this your job?” I told her, “Yes, I’m a costume designer.” Her eyes lit up. “I didn’t realize playing dressing up was a JOB!” She was giddy as she left. At opening night, her mother very grimly informed me that her daughter no longer wanted to act, but, instead, wanted to be a costume designer. I still laugh about it to this day.

SHAW 2026: Production Stage Manager; 2nd season. Originally from Calgary, I started my professional career thirty years ago at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and have worked in events, dance, theatre, and musical theatre across Canada. My first trip to NOTL was to cheer on the Stratford cricket team (sorry!) at the annual Shaw/Stratford cricket match over twenty years ago and I am very happy to now be a part of the stage management team at the Shaw Festival. With the move to NOTL, I have also been able to further my pursuit of a more recent passion by setting up a home pottery studio with the dream of one day becoming a full-time potter.

Anthony Shaffer (1926-2001) was born in Liverpool in 1926, where he and his twin brother Peter were taken by their mother to the theatre. It was here where Anthony developed a taste for the thriller, the melodrama and the suspense play.

After wartime evacuation and then military service, he and Peter went up to Cambridge in 1948, where he studied law and became editor of the university magazine Granta. At the end of the 1960s, Anthony received a kick in the pants from Peter – by now a highly successful playwright himself – who said to him, “You’re a natural writer – why don’t you stop avoiding it and get on with it?” The result was Sleuth, directly and eagerly commissioned by his twin brother. The script was turned down by many producers, but in its Brighton tryout it received a long-standing ovation and went on to play 2,359 performances in the West End and over 2,000 performances on Broadway.

After the Broadway success of Sleuth, Alfred Hitchcock contacted him and the resulting collaboration was Hitchcock’s penultimate film Frenzy (1972). Other screenplays included Mr Forbush and the Penguins (1971), The Wicker Man (1973, reputedly Shaffer’s favourite script) and three Agatha Christie adaptations: Death on the Nile (1978), Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988). Married three times, Anthony Shaffer had two daughters and died on November 6, 2001. He will be remembered as one of the leading mystery writers for both stage and screen, justifiably renowned for his sophisticated double-edged dialogue, convoluted plots and unexpected conclusions – a consummate storyteller.

SHAW 2026: Fight Director for Sleuth. I was born in Saskatchewan, and the first time I saw a play was at the Greystone Theatre at the University of Saskatchewan. I was in my second year of a bachelor’s degree, and I remember thinking how fantastic it was that pursuing the arts was something I wanted to do. The next day I added theatre as my second major, and three years later I completed my degree with a double major in Theatre and Political Science. During my three years in the drama program, I would end up choreographing the fight scenes, as I was competitive in both sabre and martial arts. I found that I had a great love for it, and upon graduation I headed off to Toronto to make my way as a stunt man and a fight director.

SHAW 2026: Set Designer for Sleuth. The sound of afternoon prayers settling across the city, the neverending stream of people being ferried across the Bosphorus, the feeling of biting into a freshly-baked simit and sipping tea from a thin-waisted glass. This is the crazy but beautiful city I was born in, Istanbul, Turkey. A daughter of a visual artist and interior designer, I was always surrounded by art and creativity, and this definitely inspired me to become a set and costume designer. My favourite part of design is when months of hard work finally come together and meet the characters on stage. At that moment, every choice I made starts to get its true meaning.

SHAW 2026: Stage Manager for Sleuth; 40th season. I first visited the Shaw Festival in 1987 as part of a school tour. The then-head of Scenic Carpentry asked if any of us had a particular interest in building sets, and I raised my hand. At the end of that part of the tour, he drew me aside and asked when I might be available to start work. Over the ensuing years, I have worked in the scene shop, been part of the electrics, audio, changeover and running crews, served as Technical Director for the Court House Theatre, and rehearsed and run dozens of shows as part of the Stage Management team. A lot has changed at the Shaw Festival in that time, but one thing hasn’t: the dedication of our company, those you will see onstage as well as those you do not, to bring you a performance second to none.