Great Grad: Silvae Mercedes debuts at the Stratford Festival this month

Mad performer, writer, producer and costume designer — and recent Concordia grad — Silvae Mercedes debuts at the Stratford Festival this month.

One of select few accepted to the festival’s Birmingham Conservatory program (2025–2026), Mercedes will play Audrey in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” directed by Chris Abraham.

“This is my first Shakespeare production,” she notes. “And it’s Stratford, on the festival stage. It’s wild. I credit my time at Concordia with the capacity to do that.

“I've always felt like I wasn’t academic enough for Shakespeare, that I couldn’t express myself effectively in rooms when discussing why I thought certain things about characters might be important to the story, or to the moment in time we were occupying.

“My degree gave me the opportunity to dig in and learn how to ‘do poetry’ and then apply that to other creative aspects of my life.”

Filling their pockets as ‘an artist, creator and human being’

Mercedes’ trajectory in the arts might be considered non-traditional. “I was born and raised in the backwoods of New Hampshire on a goat farm,” she says. “There were, like, fifteen kids in my class from first to fifth grade. Getting to New York City from Kearsarge seemed impossible.”

She attended the Interlochen Arts Academy and later graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. They had just settled down in Montreal when COVID-19 hit, pausing live performances and prompting them to reevaluate.

“I've always been a writer and wanted to go to school to get a more traditional, classical education,” Mercedes notes. "It was an opportunity to identify the pockets I felt needed to be filled as an artist, a creator and as a human being — so I applied to Concordia’s Creative Writing program.”

They quickly realized that this new endeavour and their theatrical background were deeply interconnected.

“I took a queer studies in literature course and something clicked. This was the ‘thing’ that I wanted in my creative practice.”

They ended up enrolling in the Honours English and Creative Writing program with a minor in Interdisciplinary Sexuality Studies — which they say “ticked all of the boxes.”

“Stephanie Bolster’s poetry classes were really creatively fulfilling, as was a class I took with Liz Howard about poetry and social justice. They helped me take all I was learning and put this to poetry, and then Andre Ondino Furlani helped me apply this to drama. I learned how to speak about my practice and consider my approach to the characters I was creating.”

Branching out

Mercedes came to Concordia expecting to explore writing. Instead, their university experience ended up enriching and fueling their love of the theatre.  

“You might arrive thinking you're going to do one thing, and then end up studying something completely different,” she notes. “I think that happens for a lot of artistically-leaning folks — you just start putting feelers out in different directions and see what works for you."

During their degree, they completed a work placement as a wardrobe assistant under Laura Acosta in the costume shop. It was there that they met a future collaborator, Eija Loponen-Stephenson, who was studying fine arts. The duo hit it off and became collaborators in the performance collective, Other Hearts.

In 2023, the collective toured the Invisible Artists Carnival. And last June, Loponen-Stephenson and Mercedes were nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for their production of Quartet.

As Mercedes notes, several of the Stratford directors she now works with came to see that show. “Concordia is the reason that I'm here — but in a circuitous kind of way,” she explains.

“Some of the most rewarding conversations, experiences and connections that I made were not within my area of study at Concordia. You're in classes with folks of all different backgrounds and pursuits. The more you branch out, the more you learn, grow and are challenged academically, professionally and personally.”

Deepening their self-understanding

Mercedes says that she never felt as fully supported as she did while at Concordia: “In part because of the culture the university has worked to cultivate for disabled students, but also the Access Centre for Students with Disabilities — there were folks I could speak to when I was struggling.”

“I graduated with a 3.9 GPA. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that was possible — not because I'm not intelligent enough, but because the systems, historically, have not been created to support the variability of my access needs. This has become a huge part of my own personal practice: centering non-normative experiences and encouraging others to do the same. This has yielded some gorgeous opportunities and connections that I don't think would have otherwise been possible for me.

“I now know what it is to operate inside of an institution that prioritizes supporting students with different needs. And, as a result, I'm at Stratford, able to advocate for what I need. I get to move into the rest of my career with an understanding of myself and with the ability to have those conversations.”

Mercedes regrets they will not be able to join their classmates at convocation. She will be both on stage and walking down the aisle in Stratford that week: “We're having a huge wedding party from sundown to sunup that night,” she notes. “My only day off.”

She looks forward to celebrating in Montreal when she’s done with the Birmingham Conservatory in November 2026.

“It's a lot, but it's been incredible,” says Mercedes. “I grew up in the backwoods of New Hampshire. There's no way I could have predicted that I would end up in Canada, working as a professional actor with the largest Shakespearean and repertory company in the global north.

“You can’t write this stuff.”

Find out more about Concordia's Creative Writing program.