"[Simone] has the power to reach through the camera and suck you in. [...] Simone sucks all the air out of the room as they lay their heart out."
- Steven Mann
"Simone Matheson [...] brings a certain style of reserve"
- Robert Tuomi, EyesOnWindsor
"The inner conflict [Simone] is able to show the character and the twist at the end, you are able to feel it."
- Renee Garcia
As an actor, I recently performed in the St. Thomas Mural Festival in Emergence: (Un)common Intervention, Nora in Talking to Dead Cats in the Night (House + Body), Spit in Velvethead (Pickles Theatre Co.), Beth in The Do-Gooders (Alumnae Theatre), Rose in Nurses: Then and Now (Shakespeare in Action). I was also chosen as 1 of 3 finalists in Mandy's North American Monologue Competition 2021 (see here).
As a writer, my digital poetry collection, "After the Apocalypse", developed through Theatre Passe Muraille's Centre Court, premiered as part of the 2021 Paprika Festival (see here) and has recently been remounted for Nightwood Theatre's, Fempocalypse. I have created work for theatre festivals such as The Toronto Fringe Festival (ICARUS) and DARK CROP, Ontario's first 24-hour outdoor theatre festival (ICARUS; Here and There), Soulpepper's, QUEERFUTURES2099 (Contactless) see here, Shakespeare in Action's Weston: Then and Now (Nurses: Then and Now), and more.
At present, I am developing my solo show, Suppressed, as well as my theatrical theory, "Theatre of Cringe" under the mentorship of Kayla Besse (Tangled Arts + Disability) with dramaturgy from Janet Hinton through the support of the Playwrights Guild of Canada's Playwrights Resiliancy Program.
Upcoming works include LYSISTRATA (Arrowwood Theatre Co.) generously funded by the Ontario Arts Council and Theatre Passe Muraille, and The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus (Toronto Youth Theatre).
Pictured from left to right: Haiden Lyle, Cullen McNaughton, Kiera Publicover, and Simone Matheson standing on a diagonal line on an empty, blue-lit stage. They are reaching outwards in anguish in their performance of ICARUS (2019).
Pictured from left to right: Alison Adams, Simone Matheson, Celeste Maria Fiallos, Kiera Publicover and Flora Janos. The group stands on an astroturf soccer field dressed in soccer uniforms surrounding Simone in a large circle. They watch with amazement as Simone juggles the soccer ball (THE WOLVES, 2019).
As a wearer of many hats and maker of many things, multi-hyphenate is only the tip of my artistic iceberg. As an artistic leader, I feel inspired to use the projects I create as meaningful, innovative, genre-bending, radical experiences; depedistaling “highbrow art” and reinvesting in the arts as a communal experience - while asking, who is this art is for? And how can the institutions that stage and mount these works better serve the communities who fill their seats - (beyond the confines of matinee and evening performances). I strive to reimagine our present notion of what the theatre is, what artistic experiences are, and what they can become.
