About

Plosive Productions is a professional indie theatre artists collective, founded by Artistic Director David Whiteley. We produce shows at The Gladstone Theatre in the heart of Ottawa’s Little Italy. Our mission is to provide our community with fulfilling, relevant and refreshing experiences, for both audiences and artists alike:

  • Fulfilling: We strive for each production to present a strong staging of a strong text. We choose great works from Canada and the world, where each work’s demands match the talents of local artists and the appetites of local audiences.
  • Relevant: Whether world premières or classics, Canadian plays or texts from abroad that speak to local concerns, we look for works that matter. We find relevance in many places: in ideas and feelings; in timely subjects and timeless tales.
  • Refreshing: We take pride in bringing new experiences to Ottawa. This can mean world premières, new translations, or works new to Canada or to Ottawa. We also put the “re-” in “refreshing” by putting new twists on classics.

Plosive believes in diversity, inclusivity, and equity. We are committed to reflect the diversity of our community in the artists we engage, and are determined to fight against under-representation and discrimination in all its forms through our work. To this end we strongly encourage artists of all gender identities, races, cultures, ethnicities, sexual orientations, abilities, and all the many strands of our social fabric to apply to work with us, with a particular emphasis on members of equity-deserving communities and those who have faced discrimination and barriers to inclusion.

We are proud to be based in Ottawa and honoured to be on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people. We are committed to creating opportunities for local theatre artists, including veterans and emerging talent.

The Collective(s)

Plosive has, since its inception in 2010, always worked as an informal collective of artists, driving all decision-making behind each show we produce. To do this, we’ve had an core group of artists for most of our existence, with David Whiteley and Teri Loretto taking primary initiative for artistic choices as Co-Artistic Directors through 2022, and David shoulding tasks that would fall to a General Manager, assembling teams that drew from a mix of core members and guest artists for each production.

The pandemic brought many changes, and with them Plosive takes slightly new shape for its new season. This year, and for the foreseeable future, Plosive’s shows will be produced under Canadian Actors’ Equity Association’s Artist Collective Policy, with each cast and creative team forming a show-specific colletive for that production. This tweak to how Plosive operates respects CAEA’s expectations for use of the Artists Collective Policy, and preserves Plosive’s longstanding practice of creating artist-driven theatre. David continued to serve as the Artistic Director making the programming choices leading to each such production, and the thread tying together all Plosive Production shows.

David Ross Whiteley, Artistic Director

As an actor/director/musician, David has worked with most of Ottawa & the surrounding region’s professional theatres, including the NAC English Theatre, four summers with the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, a Company of Fools, SevenThirty Productions and Bear & Co. Favourite acting credits with Plosive include bringing theatre back to the stage at the height of the pandemic with Midsummer [a play with songs] as well as playing Tom in The Norman Conquests, Thomas in Venus in Fur, Ben in Detroit and Elyot in Private Lives and Dr. Givings in In the Next Room or the vibrator play (Prix Rideau Awards Outstanding Production). Highlights with other companies include Moody in Anne & Gilbert: The Musical (NAC English Theatre), Duke of Windsor in Finishing the Suit (Bear & Co., CCC Best Actor—Professional nomination), Salieri in Mozart & Salieri (Seven Tyrants Theatre, Jessie Awards Outstanding Production—Musical nomination), and Vivaldi in The Red Priest (Guild Festival Theatre) .

For Plosive Productions, David…

…­directed:

  • The Importance of Being Earnest
  • Cyrano de Bergerac
  • Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike
  • Romeo & Juliet Redux
  • Basket of Deplorables
  • Suspense! The Radio Show, comprised of
    • The Lodger
    • The Yellow Wallpaper
    • Ghost Hunt

…acted in:

  • How It Works
  • In the Next Room or the vibrator play
  • Private Lives
  • Detroit
  • The School for Wives
  • Venus in Fur
  • The Norman Conquests, comprised of
    • Table Manners
    • Living Together
    • Round and Round the Garden
  • Mӕstro
  • Voices from the Front
  • Basket of Deplorables
  • Blink
  • Sylvia
  • The Ugly One
  • Midsummer [a play with songs]
  • Suspense! The Radio Show: Ghost Hunt

…and adapted:

  • The Importance of Being Earnest
  • Cyrano de Bergerac (rhymed verse translation)
  • The School for Wives (rhymed verse translation)
  • The Radio Show: Christmas Classics (The Little Prince)
  • Winnie-the-Pooh: The Radio Show
  • Suspense! The Radio Show, comprised of
    • The Lodger
    • The Yellow Wallpaper
    • Ghost Hunt

Other directing credits include The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine (Vacant House Theatre), Anthony and Cleopatra (a Company of Fools), The Brothers Menæchmus (Third Wall Theatre), Hidden in This Picture (Vision Theatre), A Leave of Absinthe (The Absinthe Collective) and Thirsty for your skin, my parched parted lips… (Mutatis Mutandis).

David also works as a translator, adapter and playwright, with credits including rhymed verse renditions of Molière’s The Misanthrope (Third Wall Theatre), Tartuffe (Third Wall Theatre, Rideau Award nomination) and The School for Wives (SevenThirty Productions/Plosive Production co-production) and Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (Plosive Productions). Other writing credits include A Flea in Her Ear (SevenThirty Productions) and with Mutatis Mutandis theatre company: What Goes Around…/…Comes Around (Rideau and Golden Cherry Award nominations; Best in Venue, Ottawa Fringe Festival), Ubu Rex and Ubu Mactwobu, Mozart Requiem and Hot Spur! The One-Man One-Act Wild West Musical Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One.

David has studied at Ryerson Theatre School, the University of Guelph and holds a Masters degree from l’Université du Québec à Montréal.