Our Team
Michael Rubinoff, MSC
A theatre producer and lawyer, Michael is most passionate about igniting creation and supporting storytellers. Over the last decade he sparked a renaissance in Canadian musical theatre by developing thirty new musicals through the Canadian Music Theatre Project (the "CMTP"), an internationally recognized incubator of new works that he founded in 2011. Michael conceived the creation of the international hit musical Come From Away, for which he is a Producer and the Creative Consultant on productions worldwide, and has received the Olivier Award for Best Musical, a Tony Award Nomination for Best New Musical and the Meritorious Service Cross awarded by the Governor General of Canada on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen and all Canadians. During a decade of service in post-secondary education, Michael has served as academic leader, director of a research centre and elected member of a Board of Governors. He has collaborated with producers, creators and educators around the world to support innovation and creativity in theatre and arts education. As a leading expert and thought leader in the development of new musicals, he has been called upon to provide guidance and leadership to not for profit organizations, colleges and universities, commercial producers, emerging arts practitioners and government agencies.
Education:
Michael completed his B.A. (Political Science) and LL.B. at Western University. He was the recipient of the Dean Ivan C. Rand Award in recognition of meritorious academic standing throughout his years in law, and outstanding contributions in the service of the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Law. He remains the only student to have been elected twice as president of Western Law’s Student Legal Society. He also served as the elected student representative to Western’s Board of Governors. He was a member of the 2000 winning team of the Niagara International Law Moot Court Competition and the valedictorian of his graduating law class. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 2002 and is a member of the Law Society of Ontario. Michael is a graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute's intensive producing program in New York and is a 2015 member of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference.
Favourite Quote:
“I think only people in the theater know what a producer is. The public does not know. It knows a writer writes, and an actor acts, and a director tells them what to do. A producer raises money. Well, he does, and in some cases that's all he does. But the workers in the theater know that this is not the real thing. A producer is a rare, paradoxical genius -hard-headed, soft-hearted, cautious, reckless, a hopeful innocent in fair weather, a stern pilot in stormy weather, a mathematician who prefers to ignore the laws of mathematics and trust intuition, an idealist, a realist, a practical dreamer, a sophisticated gambler, a stage-struck child. That's a producer.”— Oscar Hammerstein II
For Fun:
Traveling the world and meeting new storytellers.
Yael Katz, Ph.D.
A transformative leader, scholar and educator championing creativity and innovation across disciplines and domains of practice, research, learning and engagement, Yael is most passionate about exploring new and unexpected terrains to help rediscover and multiply the transcendent power of story, creativity, science and humanity at home and abroad. Having spent over two decades as a higher education professional in several capacities including executive academic leader, university and college educator and special advisor on creativity and the creative campus, Yael has shepherded many multidisciplinary teams and units to lead pan-institutional curriculum and program innovation initiatives, organizational development and research activities, strategy task forces and dynamic community engagement in such areas as creative thinking, creative problem solving, creative writing and expression, imaginative space design and collaborative teaching and learning. Yael strives to inspire and facilitate meaningful change. She writes, speaks and advises internationally on creativity and innovation in 21st century postsecondary contexts. Her current research interests include cross-disciplinary approaches to narrativity and storytelling, studies in creativity and creative thinking, narrative medicine, medical humanities and interdisciplinarity.
Education:
Yael completed her Ph.D. in English at the University of British Columbia where she was a Killam Predoctoral Fellow, a SSHRCC Doctoral Fellow, a Li Tze Fong Memorial Fellow and the recipient of the Preferred Participant Fellowship to the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University. She was a resident of Green College and served on the Executive Board of the Green College Dining Society as Director and later as Vice-President. She holds an MA (English) and an Honours BA (English) from Western University, where she was an F. K. Ashbaugh President’s Scholar and earned the M. B. Allison Gold Medal upon graduation. While at Western University, Yael was also the recipient of the First Prize of the English-speaking Union award for the most outstanding essay, the Archibald A. Campbell Scholarship for highest standing in a Canadian Literature course, the William Wyatt Scholarship and an Ontario Graduate Fellowship. For professional and personal development, Yael has completed the Book Publishing Immersion Workshop at Simon Fraser University, as well as a series of workshops delivered by the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State, SUNY to become a Level IV Creative Problem Solving Facilitator.
Favourite Quote:
“A word after a word after a word is power.” (Margaret Atwood)
For Fun:
Short fiction writing, long distance running.