Shira is an actor, artist, and performance creator. She likes to make collaborative performances that invite audiences to imagine new ways for us to be together. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and the University of Guleph. Shira makes a lot of her work with UnSpun Theatre, with her husband Chris Hanratty. They live in Tkaronto with their children, Calla and Geneva, who are very cool and funny people.

Of Note:

+ Shira’s essay “Keeping Good Company” can be found in the Winter 2022 issue of Canadian Theatre Review.

+ Shira is currently completing her MA in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University.

+ She is an Associate Artist with Theatre Direct. She was thrilled to facilitate the Hack Lab program and was a key contributor to Wishes in the Wind.

+ Shira's performance, Lost Together, won the 2018 SummerWorks Festival Production Award! NOW Magazine called the show "brilliant, and unlike anything I've experienced at the festival"

+ Lost Together was presented at Progress Festival in Toronto, as well as at the In the Soil Festival in Niagara, and was part of Nightwood Theatre’s 2020-2021 season.

+We were thrilled to visit Vancouver in January 2019 pitching Lost Together at the PuSh Festival.

+ Shira performed in Re:Current Theatre's production of The Smile Off Your Face, which won the 2017 SummerWorks Festival award for Best Production.

+  Shira's commissioned performance and installation, All The Things I've Lost, premiered at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto.

+ The Speedy, which premiered as part of Harbourfront Centre's World Stage, was the subject of a scholarly article by Prof. Denise Cruz in American Literary History, Summer 2017.