ACTRA PANEL : Child performers today….there’s so much to talk about!

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Child performers today….there’s so much to talk about!  

Stage & Screen parents….it’s a tough job, we know. Want to learn how to navigate the responsibility of ensuring your child is supported in the industry? We hope you bring along your budding (or already successful) child performer. We are sure you have questions. We want to answer them.

MODERATOR:

Jajube Mandiela

Jajube is best known on screen for Degrassi, Jump In! and voicing Crash Canyon. Stage highlights include wo summers of A Midsummer Night's Dream (Dream in High Park), and the title role in Binti’s Journey (Theatre Direct) which garnered Dora Award nominations. Jajube was the Artistic Director of b current Performing Arts (2013-2017).

PANELISTS:

Christina Collins (ACTRA Toronto Child Advocate)

Christina has been acting for over Forty years.  She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from New York University in 1980. She has performed at a wide variety of theatres across Canada and the United States. Ms. Collins also has numerous films and television credits to her name. She tutors actors privately and teaches acting for Film and Television at Humber College and Toronto Academy of Acting. For the past 15 years, at Humber college, Christina has developed syllabi for many classes: Acting Technique, Improvisation, Theory and Practice for Film and television, The Business of Acting for Electronic Media and The Fundamentals of Acting (script analysis and scene study),She is the artistic director for Sawitri Theatre Company for the past 7 years and has directed over 8 productions. She freelances as an audition director for commercial casting houses around Toronto.She is the appointed Child Advocate for ACTRA Toronto.

Tabby Johnson (Former Child Advocate) was a child performer, helped to push Bill 17 through to legislation to protect child performers in Ontario)

Millie Davis - Child performer

Milie has been acting in film and television since the age of four. She was recently seen this summer in Good Boys, as well as See (Apple TV), but she is better known for playing the role of “Summer” in the hit movie Wonder. Career highlights include playing the recurring role of “Gemma Hendrix” on the critically-acclaimed Orphan Black (Space/BBC America), and playing the lead role of “Ms. O” on the TVO/PBS Television hit Odd Squad (CSA nomination - Best Performance in a Children's or Youth's Program or Series). Millie reprised the role of Ms. O, on the big screen, in Odd Squad: The Movie (for which she was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award - Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a dramatic program or limited series). No stranger to the voice-over and animation world, Millie has been playing series leads since the age of five. She can now be heard voicing the lead role of “Esme” in the animated series Esme and Roy (Sesame Workshop/HBO Kids). Most recently, Millie has finished working on the title role of “Lamya” in the animated feature film Lamya’s Poem which is due out later this year.

Allison Augstin - Child performer

Canadian Award nominee Allison Augustin , is a bright young actress from The Greater Toronto Area, who made her screen début at six years old in a short film "Now & Then" in 2010 and has since then appeared in numerous national commercials, guest spots in TV shows, Cartoon, and films. In 2013, landed the role of Keisha in the feature film"The Best Man Holiday", with star studded Hollywood casts, such as a Terrence Howard, Morris Chestnut and Taye Diggs, which was written and directed by Malcolm D. Lee. Allison was nominated for Best Actress in a Short Movie at the Young Artist Awards in L.A and The Joeys Awards in Vancouver for her lead role in "Clean Teeth Wednesday" in 2014 and in 2016 for “Muna”

Keisha Augustin - Stage Parent

Keisha Augustin is a mom, wife, Registered ICU Nurse and Actra apprentice. She has extensive knowledge and experience navigating the acting industry as a consistent source of support for her two girls who both are active in the acting industry.