Tanisha Taitt

Tanisha Taitt is a director/actor/playwright/producer/educator, activist, and accidental essayist. She got her professional start as a Directing Apprentice with Obsidian Theatre and since then she has worked with numerous companies in a myriad of roles. Tanisha is Director of the Peace Camp program at Children's Peace Theatre -- an organization that teaches young people about creating a culture of peace through theatre -- where she has been an artist facilitator since 2008 and a co-developer of its Conflict Transformation and Anti-Oppression curriculum. She is a Drama and Spoken Word mentor for the Toronto District School Board's EngageArts and tdsbCreates programs, initiatives that bring professional artists into classrooms to inspire and nurture creative expression in students and teachers. Also a singer-songwriter, she is a recipient of the Canadian Music Publishers Association Songwriters Award. Tanisha spent six years as the Toronto producer for V-Day -- the global movement to end violence against women and girls -- and also served as National Coordinator for its One Billion Rising Canada campaign. In 2014, she founded Teenage Graceland, a youth theatre collective aimed at challenging the societal attitudes that lead to gender-based violence. Her play Keeper was published by Scirocco Drama in 2016, and she is currently creating a theatrical work entitled FORCE -- a musical about rape. Tanisha is a two-time YWCA Woman of Distinction nominee for her commitment to artistic excellence and social justice. Of her many hyphenated descriptors, "aunt" is her proudest title.