Theater Practitioner Panel Discussion

As part of the Paris Fringe Festival at Ground Control, this panel brings together anglophone theatre professionals based in Paris to explore the challenges, opportunities, and future of the community.

Panelists will share insights from their own experiences on topics ranging from producing and casting to artistic practices, international festivals, and creating work in France. The conversation will continue with a moderated discussion and audience Q&A, encouraging exchange and collaboration within Paris’s anglophone theatre community.

✶ off-site event → Ground Control – 81 Rue du Charolais, 75012 Paris

✶ discussion held in English.

Panelists :

Kester Lovelace – AI Rights Union for Actors, Writers, and Voice-Over Artists

Topic : AI in the voice-over industry

Born in London, and trained in the UK, and at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, Kester has been living and working in France for over 30 years. He founded Drama Ties – a professional theatre-in-education company in 1999, and he directed the first French production of Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing in 2009 in Paris, and on tour.  He’s been a voice actor for over 25 years, working daily on commercials, documentaries, cartoons, video games and museum guides, and is currently president of Les Voix, a campaign group of professional voice artists in France, presently engaged in defending actors against the onslaught of generative AI.

On screen, he’s had roles as supporting actor in films with Léa Seydoux, Camille Cottin, Lambert Wilson, Karim Leklou, Clémence Poésy…  He’s a coach and acting teacher at theatre schools in Paris, including the CNSAD et ESAD.

Anton Bonnici – Writer, Publisher, and Theatre Professor

Topic : The Paris anglo-theatre scene as laboratory and incubator.

Anton Bonnici is a teacher, playwright, and dramaturg with more than twenty years of international classroom experience. His work brings together drama, literature, creative writing, and performance-based learning. He is also the creator of Performative Complex Realism, an educational and creative framework concerned with character-driven stories and the social worlds that shape them.

Through workshops, staged readings, and collaborative exercises, he encourages participants to approach drama as a living encounter, a practice he calls Not Theatre: a way of exploring ideas, testing interpretations, entering other perspectives, and discovering what becomes possible when a group gathers around a play where community and understanding surpass aesthetic concerns.

Charlotte Pleasants – Alchemy Theatre Company

Topic : Producing in Europe

Charlotte Pleasants is a New Zealand producer and actor based in Paris since 2015. Her producing credits include Luke Thornborough’s ALONE (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Best Drama – What The Fringe; Theatre503, London). She was lead producer for Hannah Coyle’s Three Sisters, Alchemy’s highest-selling production. In 2025, Charlotte expanded into film, producing the short Through the Window with Vis-à-Vis Films. She co-produced and co-directed Alchemy’s debut production, The Taming of the Shrew, staged at a private château and in Paris. Charlotte is the Artistic Director of Tapis Théâtre (est. 2016) and a freelance producer. She leads the marketing and digital content for Alchemy Theatre. As an actor, her credits include Goneril (King Lear), Sir Toby Belch (Twelfth Night), Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and Benvolio (Romeo and Juliet).

Virginia Vass – Online Global Theatre Community Leader and Influencer, American Performer in Europe

Topic : How language can open opportunities to artists in the entertainment industry.

Born in North Carolina and raised in the Philadelphia, PA area, Virginia has been surrounded by languages and art since a very young age. Her mother enrolled her into French immersion programs starting at the age of 5 where her interest in languages began. As an artist, she grew in the acting world, later becoming a graduate of Montclair State University with a BFA in Musical Theatre. After college, Virginia felt that going the traditional route straight to New York for theatre was not something that she wanted right away. She wanted to explore her options as a performer, and this exploration lead her to Los Angeles, Hamburg, Germany, and now Paris, France. With her social media presence, she hopes to lead a movement where artists know their options, giving them the opportunity to work all over the world in any language they can imagine.

Joelle Antonia Santiago– Choreographer, Professor, NYU Tisch School of the Arts

Topic : Developing a new piece of theatre and bringing it to Paris 

Joëlle Antonia Santiago (b. New York, NY) is a choreographer working in New York and Paris. She is a Fulbright Scholar and a recipient of the Harriet Hale-Woolley Award for the Arts, acting as Artist in Residence at the Fondation des États-Unis from 2023-2025 in Paris. Joëlle has presented work at venues such as X-Posed on the Chelsea Highline, Roulette Intermedium, Chelsea Piers, The Clark Art Institute, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and la Fondation des États-Unis. Upcoming projects include premieres with director Anne Bogart (BAM Next Wave) and Pulitzer Prize Finalist playwright Nazareth Hassan (Performance Space New York). Her writing is published in The Whitney Review, Culturebot, and IMPULSE Magazine. Santiago began her training in the dance studios of NYC, Steps on Broadway, Broadway Dance Center, and the Joffrey School of Ballet. She graduated Cum Laude from Barnard College of Columbia University, studying with Jodi Melnick, Katie Glasner, Caroline Fermin, Dr. Seth Williams, and Dr. Janet Jacobsen (2020).

Nathalie Allison – Intimacy Coordinator

Topic : Paving the Way for Intimacy and Consent on Set

Nathalie is a certified intimacy coordinator, working and living in Paris since 2018. Nathalie worked professionally in film and theatre as an actress for 10 years, in French and English, and began her journey in intimacy coordination in 2021. With expert training from Principal Intimacy Professionals, she has worked as an intimacy coordinator for numerous feature films, series, and as an intimacy director for several plays in Paris. As a theatre director, Nathalie has had the pleasure of directing the European premiere of Jane Coyle’s Both Sides in 2024, as well as several showcase productions at Cours Florent drama school. Her passion lies in telling the stories that are often forgotten, with a passion for complex female characters, political texts, and strong script-writing.