GITA’S GIRLS 2020 SPOKEN WORD SQUAD

Growing in the Arts, Gita Schuster-Ashley, Artistic Director
Charlotte Camrass, Morgan Ernest, Alyna Fernandez, Hannah Findlay, Taylor Gruber, Merrin Hickey, Veronik Mishchenko, Annika Nehaniv-Dautenhahn, Lara Pascu, Lee Pittman, Alix Rada, Reagan Spencer, Kianna Warkentin, Hazel Yott

March 14-22
Throughout the Festival Check out #GitasGirls2020 for daily POP-UP’s!

GITA’S GIRLS is the only all-female arts program in the Region which provides an essential home for the creation of extraordinary Theatre, Film and Expressive Arts Experiences by and for girls. Gita’s Girls Spoken Word Squad is the winner of the Festival Trophy from the Kiwanis Drama Festival for Outstanding Spoken Word Performance in 2018 and 2019. They defend their title April 2020.

Gita Schuster-Ashley is a Drama Teacher, Playwright, Director and Expressive Arts Facilitator who has been engaging young people in Kitchener-Waterloo and surrounding area for 30 years, the past twelve as Artistic Director of Growing In The Arts. She is a graduate of the Etobicoke School of the Arts in Toronto and has over 30 years of acting, music and dance training. Multiple award-winning, Gita completed the Directing Intensive Program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in 2019.

Gita spent five years as a Child and Youth Worker and arts facilitator for Lutherwood Mental Health Services Open Custody Units, Residential Treatment Program, Adolescent Male Sex Offender Group Home, Pioneer Youth Services Aggressive Male Group Home, Betty Thompson Youth Centre, and Kiwanis House. She has successfully provided arts enrichment to clients diagnosed with various disorders such as, Autism, ADHD, Asperger’s, Pica and within the P.D.D. spectrum. Gita is formally trained in Behaviour Management, Crisis Prevention, and Intervention as well as Risk Management. has spent the past 9 summers at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts where she has developed over 20 one-of-a-kind Theatre and Expressive Arts programs for highly creative young people. Some of her programs include, My Sister’s Keeper Theatre Arts Experience, Funny Girl Theatre Arts Experience, Dr. Seuss Theatre Arts Camp, Princess Protection Program Theatre Arts Experience, The Fabulous Fifties Theatre Arts Program, Harry Potter Expressive Arts Experience, Fairy Training Expressive Arts Program and The House that Gita Built Doll House Making Program. https://www.growinginthearts.com