About Us!
The Emerging Playwrights Reading Series is a project co-created and produced by Liza Hersh and Aurora McClennan and run through EPRS Collective, following conversations in the Toronto Fringe Festival’s TENT program.
The Series was created by and for emerging artists as a response to feedback surrounding the challenges associated with transitioning into professional spaces. The series intends to provide selected playwrights with both development support for new plays and greater exposure to Toronto’s theatre community.
Liza Hersh
co-creator & co-producer
Liza Hersh is a producer and arts administrator from Toronto. She has worked in a range of arts management roles for companies in Toronto and New York, including Soulpepper Theatre Company, The Theatre Centre, The Coal Mine Theatre, Quote Unquote Collective, Project: Humanity, American Ballet Theatre and Second Stage Theater. Recent producing credits include: People, Places and Things (Dora Award), Hedda Gabler (Coal Mine Theatre); Loss; Comedy is Art (The Theatre Centre), as well as workshops for Project: Humanity’s Proximity Lab. Liza holds an MA in Performing Arts Administration from New York University.
Aurora McClennan
co-creator & co-producer
Aurora McClennan is a multi-blah blah, who tries to pay her bills by crying on command, writing raucous romps, and putting on a show to rival Judy and Mickey.
Selected Acting: Natalie, The Remainders (Roar in the Woods, Toronto Fringe 2026); Blaithin, The Irish Pub Play, or A Goat, A Ghost & A Guinness (TKBB); Telephone Girl, Machinal (The Flare); Emilie, Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight (The Flare); Lily, The Story Teller (PaperMills; No Strings Theatre; Hamilton Fringe); Viola, Twelfth Night (SCC).
Selected Writing: The Irish Pub Play, or A Goat, A Ghost & A Guinness (TKBB 2025, The Flare 2024), The Good Guys (book & lyrics, music by Fynn Cuthbert; The Flare), The Love You Make (web-series reading).
Upcoming: The Meek Shall Inherit, a new play developed with The Vault Creation Lab’s First Drafts; and developing her first television series.
“Be Fearless and never apologize.” @missaurorarose
Contact
You can reach out to us by email or on the contact page.