About us
Founded in 2021, we are a team of emerging female-identifying and non-binary artists of varying disciplines, who banded together through our shared passion in the telling of original, immersive, dark folklore theatre works. Based in what is colonially known as Toronto, we believe in working collaboratively in the space to create a cohesive world by interweaving storytelling devices and site-specific creation. Pulling inspiration from folklore around the world, we are committed to confronting the uncomfortable.
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Natalia Bushnik (she/her)
Founding Member
Natalia is a multidisciplinary artist and Dora Mavor Moore-nominated playwright based in Toronto, and founder of Spindle Collective. She is fascinated by immersive experiences that examine morally grey territories and unnerve audience members in their complicity. Her radio play, Just Across the Causeway, was produced through the National Theatre School’s #ArtApart Program, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council. A live version of Causeway was performed as a staged reading in the UK through Little Lion Theatre Company this past November, and was workshopped in Toronto through Pirate Life's Art + Water Program. Select theatre: SAMCA (Spindle Collective); I'll Be Back Before Midnight (Bruce County Playhouse) The Bathtub Girls (Kairos Theatre). Select film: Revenge of the Black Best Friend, peopleWatching (CBC Gem).
Kathleen Welch (she/her)
Founding Member
Kathleen Welch is a playwright, composer, director, and actor. She is a founding member of Spindle Collective, a group of gender-marginalized artists focused on the creation of dark folklore epics. With Natalia Bushnik, she co-wrote and composed the music for their Dark Mother Trilogy, made up of the plays SAMCA, síofra, and spilleHOLLE. Kathleen's play, Bluebeard's Wives is also being developed by Spindle Collective. Apart from her work with Spindle, some select credits include performing as the Creepy Musician in Eldritch Theatre’s The Strange and Eerie Memoirs of Billy Wuthergloom; directing Riot King’s Dora Award winning production of Suddenly Last Summer; and composing the music for Just Across the Causeway (a radio play supported by the CBC Digital Strategy Fund). Kathleen is also one of the creators of the Dark Crop Festival, an all-night, outdoors, camping arts festival. Kathleen holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Windsor and is passionate about multidisciplinary theatre and plays that feature dangerous, amoral womxn.