Join us at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre on February 8th, 2024 for our 10 Year Gala Celebration!
YOU’RE INVITED!
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!
Innovative Arts first began looking very different from what we know today. While attending the Etobicoke School of the Arts, founder Nathan McLeod discovered his passion for teaching when the late Paul Aikins asked him to provide acting workshops for grade 11 and 12 students. After he graduated, Nathan began Innovative Acting and continued holding acting workshops out of our original studio (just down the road from our current location!)
TRIPLE THREAT THEATRE
Innovative’s first musical was FAME in 2013, when we were known as Triple Threat Theatre. We had three casts, and an ensemble of dance students!
“I started Innovative ARTS WITH the belief that everyone has potential, given the right training and opportunity, to rise to the occasion and star in a musical.”
Nathan McLeod, Founder
Innovative finds a home
Over the next few years, we continued to hold rehearsals for our musicals at The Meeting House, but in 2014, we welcomed students to our first-ever Innovative Arts studio on Speers Road in Oakville! We continued to grow our cast numbers, with five casts of The Little Mermaid and six casts of Anything Goes. Check out photos from those productions below!
DOUBLE THE CASTS, DOUBLE THE FUN!
In 2015, we produced Seussical and Footloose, doubling our growth with 12 casts for the latter show! We also introduced a second rehearsal location at St. Mildred’s Church.
The first time… but not the last!
In 2016, students performed in Shrek and Legally Blonde! We upped the production by designing and building costumes for the entire cast, and investing in larger set pieces and more back stage crew. We would eventually “revive” both these shows in 2022 and 2023, respectively. This was also the year that Nathan and Sophie celebrated their marriage with the Innovative community!
SHOWS FOR THE BOOKS
In 2017, we put on Into the Woods and The Sound of Music. Into the Woods was a massive undertaking. Many people thought producing the show with young actors was too challenging, but our students performed like true professionals - our youngest performer being age 5! Nathan and Sophie also celebrated their pregnancy with a fun Into the Woods themed photoshoot!
The Sound of Music was truly a show for the books, since we had the most casts in Innovative History—a whopping 22 casts! Plus, we opened our Toronto location, which expanded our program to three locations across the GTA.
A Milestone year
In 2018, we celebrated our 5th anniversary by hosting a Gala at Theatre Sheridan in the spring, showcasing past shows, staff, and students! Innovative students also attended two fictional schools in School of Rock and FAME, with 15 casts for each show.
Coinciding with this milestone, we decided to “revive” FAME since it was our first production back in 2013. We reinvented it with our new resources, and students who were in the original production were able to perform in different roles.
NEW BEGINNINGS
In the summer of 2019, we opened our very own studio, which meant that we no longer had to hold rehearsals at external locations! Several Innovative students and community members helped to remodel the studio and prepare for our Grand Opening celebration where we showcased the new space. Our inaugurating show was Matilda which, like The Sound of Music, had casts with mixed age groups with child and adult characters!
Covid-19 had us… Frozen
Innovative students began working on Frozen Jr in the spring of 2020, before rehearsals had to be paused due to COVID-19. Without knowing what we were working towards, we shifted our rehearsals online, with Innovative Online, a way for students to learn material at home. We were eventually able to bring students on-set to record their solo performances and create a filmed version of the show.
Lights, Camera, Action!
During the pandemic, we filmed cabaret-style shows themed to different musicals, as well as plays for the first time ever, as we turned our dance studio into a film set! Check out photos from these productions below.
Filming our musical productions gave us the perfect opportunity to formalize our Acting for Film program, and we were able to offer students the experience of shooting an episode of a TV show on our film set. Since then, our Episode Studies have continued to be one of our most popular programs, and have helped grow students’ acting abilities beyond the stage.
Class is in Session.
2021 marked yet another Innovative expansion, with the opening of our private arts high school, the Innovative Academy for the Dramatic Arts. Since its founding, IADA students have trained at the Innovative Arts studios, and earned specialized OSSD credits in musical theatre disciplines.
Back to live theatre!
Our “revival” of Shrek in 2022 was our first (and only) full-length filmed musical from our pandemic-era programs. The following year, we restructured our program to a full-year model and returned to the Theatre Sheridan stage with a “revival” of Legally Blonde Jr!
THANK YOU FOR THE PAST 10 YEARS!
Here’s to many more!
Acknowledging meaningful contributors to the growth of Innovative Arts over the years:
Paul Aikins, Scott Beaudin, Steven Botelho, Joanne Chow, Melissa Convery, Greg Cross, Judy Dadd, Linda Fletcher, Sam Holland, Sarah Hime, Bethanie Hughes, Marnie Kersten, Gillian Lea, Jocelyn Levadoux, Shaquan Lewis, Pierce Lindo, Brittany MacRae, John McLeod, Joyce McLeod, Nicholas McLeod, Tricia McLeod, Milan Miville-Dechene, Kati Pearson, Tyler Seidenberg, Cassandra Serpa, Kennedy Thompson, Becky Wasser, Jim Watson, and Mary-Lu Zahalan.
Thank you for your support!
