ABOUT CHERYL

Part storyteller, singer and spoken word artist, Cheryl has performed at a wide variety of events from Halifax to Oregon. She has been a performer at a number of International festivals including The Toronto International Storytelling Festival and The Ottawa Storytelling Festival. Her work has also been aired on both local and national radio including CBC's OUT FRONT and Definitely Not the Opera. She has organized and hosted many evenings empowering women poets and songwriters both in Montreal and Ottawa.

Cheryl has had a colorful and varied career in the Arts. She has worked as a children's book editor, a course instructor and director of many plays in the Department of Theatre at Concordia and McGill Universities, an Arts Consultant for school boards and the Quebec Government, a drama specialist, a performance artist in schools, an Acting Coach and a commissioned playwright.

She has written, produced and directed more than twenty musicals. Cher also directed a sold out production of Anne of Green Gables touring both in Montreal and Hong Kong. She was an editorial and freelance cartoonist for five years. She still dabbles occasionally. She was the founder, writer and director for the zany comedy musical theatre troupe The R.R.1 Players!

The Players toured extensively for six years in both Quebec and Ontario, presenting Cheryl's hilarious signature 'plays in rhyme'. These were described by fans as "Dr. Seuss meets Stephen Sondheim"! She also founded and performed along with her talented pal Nicolas Doyon in and around the Montreal area as The ArboRRouge Storytellers.

MORE FACTS ABOUT CHERYL

• Cheryl comes from a family of mixed Irish and Scottish decent.
• She grew up in Montreal and still makes her home there. 
• Her mother told her that the first phrase she spoke was "That's Ridiculous!"
• Cheryl continues to be inspired by ridiculous things today.
• Cheryl is also inspired by beauty and ugliness in it's many forms, myths and ancient past, corporate lies, matters of the heart and the absurd little oddities of life.
• Her earliest memories are of dancing around her grandparent's living room while her Grandfather played the piano
• Her Grandmother also had the "Gift of Gab" and was a great storyteller.
• Cheryl has a great love for traditional stories and songs, particularly those about women. She often combines these with her own contemporary music.
• Cheryl wrote her first song when she was twenty-six.
• She wrote her first full musical a year later.
• Cheryl only really started writing personal musical pieces in the year 2000.
• Today, Cheryl's concerts are a mixture of stories, songs and spoken word, sprinkled literally with theatrical pieces and quirky humor.
• Cheryl especially loves to surprise her audience by presenting them with ideas they may not have thought about before.
• Cheryl likes to consider herself a poet.
• She believes poetry to be the highest form of art and very, very difficult to do well.
• Cheryl does not believe in coincidence.
• However, she does believe in fate.
• Cheryl is a Quaker.
• Cheryl enjoys coffee, Sci-Fi TV Shows, documentaries about Archeology, long Steven King novels, sitting comfortably alone just thinking and the color orange.
• She dislikes pretentiousness, bullies, most institutions, carrots and Kale.