DMB

Donna Marie Baratta is a Director, Choreographer, Producer, Dramaturg, Educator and Performer who has trained and worked across Canada, the USA and in Europe. She is the Founder and Artistic and Managing Director of Superior Theatre Festival (STF), a multi-disciplinary arts festival in Thunder Bay, ON. She is also the Artistic Producer and Co-Founder of Present Danger Productions and a founding and core artist of [elephants] collective.

Her artistic work is varied in nature and she has experience working in theatre, film, dance, musicals, opera, industrials and in many different aspects of these art forms.  Most recently she has spent the past seven years building a multidisciplinary arts festival in Thunder Bay and creating opportunities for artists to share their work and to create new work. She has presented work such as this is what it’s like by adelheid dance projects, Possibilities of Dialogue by David Norsworthy and Marielis Garcia, Big Shot by Jon Lachlan Stewart, eating with lola by Catherine Hernandez, 41/2 (ig)noble truths by Thomas McKechnie and our “North Shore Indie Stream” presenting local artists. At the festival she has produced, directed and choreographed two new Theatre for Young Audiences plays by Thunder Bay artists.        

She enjoys working with classical and contemporary text, theatre for young audiences, devising for uncommon spaces, working with dancers and non-dancers but she is most excited about developing new work and giving emerging artists opportunities to grow and develop their craft. As a director, she is passionate about pursuing art that is critical of social, political and cultural values.  She believes in the theatre as a space for social and imaginative transformation and wants to create the type of theatre that awakens people’s consciousness, encourages their emotional investment and develops community partnerships that foster a peaceful society. 

Her work has been called "hypnotic," "uncomfortable," "haunting", her staging "inventive" and that she "elicits sharp work" from her committed cast.

She is a member of the Lincoln Center's Directors Lab, Director's Lab West, Director's Lab North (as well as on the Steering Committee) and a graduate of the MFA Directing program at the University of Alberta.

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