Performer-Puppeteer Summer Student Trainees

MB Performer-Puppeteer Number of Positions: 2

Funder: Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training

Contract: June 2 – August 10, 2025

Wage: $20/hour (35 hours/week @ 10 weeks)

Application Due: April 23rd, 2025

Potential candidates for these three positions must be First Nations, Métis or Inuit and reside within the GTA. Successful candidates must be registered or eligible to register with Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training. For both of these summer positions you must be between the ages of 18 and 30.

About Your Role

We are seeking two young people to join us this summer for our 2025 paid Apprenticeship in Public Space Performance Program. You may be an emerging artist. You may be dedicated to activism and social justice. You may be inspired by community-engaged arts. You may be someone who wants to use art to explore the urgent issues of our day. This summer, you’ll get a chance to dive into these areas as a performer-puppeteer in Dufferin Grove Park working with Clay & Paper Theatre (C&P)’s Co-Artistic Directors.

We will offer performances, parades, and pageantry using large puppets, masks, song, and movement. We’ll work on various projects over our thirteen weeks together, including local public space animations, puppetry training, supporting and working alongside C&P’s Artists in Residence, and building/workshopping a brand new C&P piece, Ghost Walk, Earth Walk. There will also be opportunities to develop artist facilitation skills during community workshop sessions.

Scheduling for this position is variable and includes occasional performances in the evenings and on weekends.

About Your Responsibilities

• You will become familiar with the company’s anti-harassment/discrimination policies, reporting procedures, and health and safety practices for the studio and park
• Learn about the essentials of working as an artist in public space, creating an accessible arts experience and how to be an artist facilitator, park host and an ambassador for C&P
• Attend workshops & training in voice, movement, puppetry & mask
• Assist with construction & maintenance of props, costumes, set pieces, masks & puppets
• Assist in the setup of community outdoor workshops & facilitation of puppet and/or mask building with participants under the lead and supervision of C&P staff artists
• Attend rehearsals and develop techniques specific to outdoor performance in a public space
• Set-up & strike set & props from C&P events, welcome attendees and community members.

Become familiar with accessibility options for seniors and low-vision audience members, learn how to prepare for a touch tour, and assist with touch tours.

About You

**Potential candidates for these three positions must be First Nations, Métis or Inuit and reside within the GTA. Successful candidates must be registered or eligible to register with Miziwe Biik Aboriginal Employment and Training. For both of these summer positions you must be between the ages of 18 and 30.**

• You have theatre, dance, puppetry, and/or musical training or experience.
• Production, construction and design skills are also assets.
• Clay & Paper Theatre is a small but mighty OUTDOOR theatre company, so applicants must be comfortable and open to working in a non-traditional theatre setting and in public view.
• You enjoy and highly value working in a collaborative and community environment.
• You are mature, dependable, organized, and a self-starter.
• A driver’s licence is an asset.

About Your Application

Please submit your resume along with a brief cover letter explaining why you would like to join our motley crew to auditions.clayandpaper@gmail.com. You can also submit a short video and tell us about yourself that way.

Submissions for these positions will be accepted until April 23rd, 2025. If you require any accessibility accommodations, let’s talk. We really want to meet you and help create a comfortable space for your interview/audition. PLEASE NOTE: Interview/audition dates may be subject to some adjustments. But we’ll try and keep people as up-to-date as possible.

If you have any questions or would like assistance please don’t hesitate to contact us at clayandpaper@gmail.com or 416-708-3222.

About Us

Since 1994, Clay & Paper Theatre has been the resident theatre company of Dufferin Grove Park, producing plays, pageants and parades with and for the community, grounded in the idea that performance in public space is an act of cultural transformation. Our practice of building, rehearsing, and performing in full public view is an attempt on our part to reunite art with the daily life of the community and to make art accessible to all. Please check us out at: https://www.facebook.com/clayandpaper/ | https://clayandpapertheatre.org/ | https://www.instagram.com/clay.paper.theatre/