Segal Centre Jewish Arts Mentorship (J.A.M.)
What is the Segal Centre J.A.M.?
The Segal Centre is a leading English language theatre in Montreal and an important cultural resource for the Jewish community. Throughout its history, the Segal Centre has supported emerging artists, providing them with opportunities to develop their work and reach the next steps in their careers.
The Segal Centre’s Jewish Arts Mentorship (J.A.M.) is an initiative created to help theatre makers foster skills, gain knowledge, build artistic community, and receive valuable professional networking opportunities.
The program seeks to support emerging theatre makers of any age who are working on projects with Jewish themes or who are engaged in issues of Jewish identity. Three to four candidates are chosen per cohort.
The program includes one-on-one artistic mentorship, group discussions about Jewish identity and the arts, and final presentations by each artist. This season, J.A.M. will run from November 2023 to June 2024.
What happens over the mentorship year?
- Each J.A.M. participant is offered monthly individual meetings with Artistic Mentor Adina Katz to create a personalized ‘strategic plan’ to identify your project’s goals, steps needed to achieve them, and support you in developing your creative work.
- Monthly group discussions on Jewish identity and the arts facilitated by the Segal Centre’s Jewish Programs Manager Sivan Slapak, with invited guests from the Jewish and Arts spheres. These are an opportunity to receive peer feedback on your creative work, engage in topics of shared interest, and build an artistic community.
- Opportunity to connect with various Segal staff members with expertise in relevant fields to assist you in professional development.
- Becoming part of the Segal Centre community and invited to events as well as productions when possible.
- Access to Segal rehearsal space up to two hours per week (when available)
- Networking opportunities in the larger professional art world.
Who can apply?
The Segal Centre J.A.M. is an inclusive program that aims to unite a group of strong, diverse voices fitting the following criteria:
- Emerging artist of any age over 21 in the performing arts
- Living in Montreal or the surrounding area
- You do not have to be Jewish to apply and we welcome all candidates. However, your project must engage with Jewish themes and recognize that the mentorship year focuses on Jewish identity and the arts.
We welcome and encourage submissions from individuals of all gender identities, cultures, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and abilities. We would like to know how to address you. If you choose, you may provide us with the pronouns you would like us to use in your submission, or any other self-identification you wish to share if you are comfortable doing so. If you are a person with a disability and require assistance during the application, please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.
Chosen candidates will receive a $1000 stipend for the year.
Submissions for 2023-24 are now closed.
For questions about JAM, contact Sivan Slapak at sslapak@segalcentre.org.
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JAM cohort of 2023-24
AIDAN COTTREAU
Aidan Cottreau (he/him) is an actor, writer, and theatre artist based in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal. Graduate of Acting for Theatre at Concordia University, Aidan loves creating characters such as Johnny in What Rough Beast by Alice Abracen (Centaur Theatre 2023), Milo in Red Paper by Xander Chung (MTL Fringe 2023), Tony in A Little Bit Pregnant by Kate Lavut (Toronto Fringe/MainLine 2023), and Jonah in the podcast Dreamers by Broken Crown Productions. His candid and eccentric writing can be found covering the Montreal arts scene on ForgetTheBox.ca. Under the company name A Broke Theatre, Aidan collectively devises experimental works, andhosts performance events Shruti vol. I-IV (Teesri Duniya). As part of the Segal Centre’s JAM cohort, he is continuing development of his play The Beinoni, a personal exploration of Jewish identity and mysticism. Represented by Haus of Marc talent.
SASHA GOLVIN
Sasha is thrilled to be a participant in the current JAM program. Art as a form of telling the stories of marginalized people is an inspiration for Sasha. As a Drama Therapist Sasha believes in the power of art beyond entertainment. Since arriving in Montreal from Vancouver two years ago, Sasha has been inspired heavily by their Jewish background, as the city has been a cultural centre for the Jewish community for generations. Sasha hopes to create a clown/drag piece, which follows the origin story of Heart Dandy, a nice Jewish boy from outer space. The piece is centered around the themes of Jewish joy, acceptance, alienation, and queerness.
SOPHIE KASTNER
Sophie Kastner is a composer located in Montreal, QC. Her mission is to make opera relevant to contemporary audiences by telling stories of queer women and women who have been systemically erased from history. Sophie graduated with a Master’s in Music Composition from McGill, where she composed All Things Lovely, an opera based on the letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, in collaboration with librettist Alice Abracen. In the spring of 2022, several scenes were workshopped by Opera McGill as part of their Beta Lab New Works Initiative. Her latest project with Alice is a work of historical fiction about Eve Adams, a Polish Jewish immigrant and owner of a lesbian tearoom in Greenwich Village. Sophie is excited to be developing her new project as part of this year’s JAM cohort. She hopes that, through delving deeper into Eve’s Jewish identity, she will rediscover facets of her own.
See previous cohorts here.
With the generous support of
