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Chester Playhouse has been a home to the performing arts since it was built in 1938 in Chester, Nova Scotia, by Ken Corkum and Eric Redden. Its first tenant, the Keneric Theatre, operated for thirty years as a cinema, and the building was first used for live performances in 1963, when the Chester Jesters began the first of five summer seasons.

The building was purchased and renovated in the 1970s by Leo and Dora Velleman, who renamed it the Leading Wind Theatre as a home for Canadian Puppet Festivals (CPF). Managed by a board of directors, CPF was a non-profit organization that hosted workshops and puppet productions including The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. After the Vellemans retired in 1983 CPF merged with Mermaid Theatre.

Chester Theatre Council (CTC) was founded in 1984 to preserve the Leading Wind Theatre. CTC originally sponsored touring productions, but in 1987 leased the building as a venue for the first Chester Theatre Festival. That same year, Christopher Ondaatje purchased the theatre and leased it to the council and the name was changed to Chester Playhouse. The Ondaatje family donated the playhouse to the CTC in 1992 and in 1993 the theatre underwent an extensive renovation. In 1999 fundraising for a second wave of improvements began. These renovations were completed in two phases, which resulted in new dressing rooms, workshop space, green room and lobby, and an updated electrical system.

The Chester Playhouse is owned and operated by a volunteer board of directors, drawn from the community, who provide strategic leadership to guide the direction of the theatre. The theatre is managed by the Chester Playhouse Society, which is mandated to source, present and promote live theatre, music performance, film and other cultural experiences, and educational and participatory opportunities for youth and adults. To support this, the society seeks to sustainably equip, operate and maintain the Chester Playhouse and has hosted both touring companies and other performers; provided a venue for local performing arts groups, including the Chester Drama Society, the Chester Ballet School, and the Chester Brass Band; hosted workshops for all ages; established the Chester Theatre School program and the Chester Theatre Festival; and allowed the space to be used for local meetings.

Primarily a stage director, Linda Moore has worked at major theatres across Canada including the Shaw Festival, the Manitoba Theatre Centre, and The Vancouver Playhouse. She served as Artistic Director of Neptune Theatre in Halifax from 1990–2000, producing over 90 productions on two stages while leading the organization through a major renovation and expansion. She has also directed plays and operas and taught theatre classes at McGill University, Dalhousie University, the University of Victoria and the National Theatre School of Canada.

Her crime novel Foul Deeds was published by Vagrant Press in 2007.

She has received several Merritt Awards from Theatre Nova Scotia, and in 2005 she was awarded the Halifax Regional Municipality Mayor’s prize for Achievement in Theatre. In 1997 Linda Moore received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from St. Mary’s University in Halifax. From 2008-2010 she served as the Crake Fellow in Drama at Mount Allison University, where she directed Sharon Pollock's Blood Relations and Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa.

Registered in 1978 as Mulgrave Road Co-operative Theatre, the company's origins date back to 1976, with the creation of "The Mulgrave Road Show," co-written and performed by Robbie O’Neill, Michael Fahey, Gay Hauser and Wendell Smith. The play explored the issues faced by a community in decline. Mulgrave, located on the eastern shore of Nova Scotia across from Cape Breton Island, had experienced a sustained recession after the 1954 construction of the Canso Causeway.

Mulgrave Road Theatre has a mandate to develop, produce and promote a theatrical experience that resonates with Atlantic Canadians. The company has made a significant contribution to the growth of Canadian theatre and the development of Atlantic Canadian artists, having produced dozens of original scripts, many of which have been performed on stages across the country and beyond

MRT also plays a leading role in ground-breaking community development projects; using theatre as a medium to address critical social issues that affect the region. MRT is committed to equity and inclusion throughout its organization and demonstrates this in its programming, outreach, and people.

Mulgrave productions are developed through commissions, playwrights-in-residence, on-site and distance dramaturgy, and work-shopping. In the beginning, scripts were largely collective creations, such as "Business of Living," which was written by 18 Atlantic playwrights. Other notable productions included "I’m Assuming I’m Right" (Frank MacDonald), "From Fogarty’s Cove" (Ric Knowles), "Battle Fatigue" (Jenny Munday), "Marion Bridge" (Daniel MacIvor), and "Caribou" (Michael Melski). Two or three productions are mounted each year. In addition to its touring company, Mulgrave offers a youth program called ROADies.

Mulgrave Road Theatre has a governing board made up of professionals and community members. It is a member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, the Nova Scotia Theatre Alliance, and Arts Cape Breton.

The Dark Night Theatre was established in January 1988 under the auspices of the Nova Scotia Drama League. It was a small informal group of writers, actors, and directors based in Halifax, Nova Scotia and it operated in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The mission of Dark Night Theatre was to promote interest in theatre, to develop and support writers (particularly those in Atlantic Canada), and to provide a forum for onging exchange of ideas and information.

Dark Night Theatre's primary activities involved script reading and critiquing. The group held weekly meetings each Monday at the Cunard Street Theatre, and later, the CBC Radio Room. The meetings were known as "ScripTease" and later, "Playwright's Corner." The reading series focused primarily on local theatrical works in development, but occassionally read plays of national or international significance. The group led to the creation of Upstart Theatre and had connections to the Dramatists' Cooperative of Nova Scotia.

The Women in Media Foundation, originally called The Women’s Television Network Foundation, was formed in 1995 as part of the licenses agreement with the CRTC in launching the Women’s Television Network. Funded by the cable network, the foundation aimed to develop programs to assist women in areas of broadcasting where they are underrepresented, specifically technical operation positions.

Their Mission Statement and Core Principals were “At the WTN Foundation we inspire and educate Canadian women to participate and lead in the multi-media industry. In so doing we believe In diversity, equity, creative, excellence, integrity and learning.”

The foundation offered multiple programs and workshops to promote women in media and broadcast technology fields. The Girls TV Camp offered training for pre-teen and teenage girls as television technicians. The Women’s Technical Internship offered young women experience in hands on job skills in media and broadcasting technology and the Women’s Television Network dowment, was an educational fund to assist professional women in broadcasting and media to update their technology skills. Other programs and workshops included gender equity workshops, speaking engagements, creating lesson plans in video production for teachers and a girls travelling documentary team, taking girls to educational and technology courses across Canada.

In 2001 Corus Entertainment bought the Women’s Television Network, and moved all operations from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Toronto, Ontario. The media conglomerate planned on terminating the foundation. However, the foundation put forth a proposal to continue its funding by highlighting their accomplishments, their necessity, as well as the CRTC criteria in granting a license to the cable channel in 1995. Corus Entertainment agreed to continue funding the foundation until it wound down in 2008.

John Watt was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1952 and studied Fine Arts at Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick from 1971 to 1973. During this time, John worked as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker until he discovered video, a new time-based art form that shifted his attention away from more traditional art media. Watt continued his studies from 1973 to 1974 at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he produced many of his early video performance-for-the-camera works, notably “Peepers” and “I’m a Killer”.

Over the past forty years, Watt has become one of the most internationally respected media producers/directors in Canada and a noted pioneer of Video Art. John’s video art was exhibited and collected as early as 1974 at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 'Videoscape' and was notably the first major survey of video art in Canada.

In 1979 Watt produced and curated “Television By Artists”, a landmark series of six commissioned television programs by artists. Each program was designed and framed for broadcast television and examined a variety of concerns as objects or events for broadcast television.

Watt’s interest in the advancement of video technology led him to becoming one of first commercial videodisc producer’s in Canada, directing four major installations for the Canadian Pavilion at Expo ’86. This groundbreaking project consisting of fourteen synchronized laser videodiscs and was programmed using a digital image controller over a matrix of one hundred and eight monitors. He has continued to be an innovative video producer, pioneering electronic applications for the Internet and Public Display worldwide.

Watt’s video works have been extensively exhibited and are collected nationally and internationally in museums, galleries, expositions, festivals, broadcasts, including: National Gallery of Canada, Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukui, Japan, Brighton Polytechnical Institute, England, Centre d’art Contemporain Basse-, France Normanmdie, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, The Power Plant, Art Gallery at Harbourfront, Toronto, Montevideo, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Blaffer Gallery, Houston, Texas, U.S.A., Koln Art Fair, Koln, Germany, Agnes Etherington Arts Centre, Kingston, Ontario, Obscure Gallery, 729 Cote D’Abraham, Quebec City, London Video Arts, London England, Simon Fraser University, Center for Arts, B.C. Canada, University of Toronto, McLuhan Center, Toronto, High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., Maison de la Culture de Brest, Brest, Belgium, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Alberta, Long Beach Museum of Art, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Hara, Japan, Sydney Biennale, Sydney, Australia, Kijkhuis, Den Haag, The Netherlands, Via della Croce, Rome Italy, Ed Video, Guelph, Canada, Western Front, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Nancy Nicol is a professor in the Visual Arts Department at York University, where she has taught since 1989. Between 1979 and 2009 she created over thirty films and has exhibited widely in national and international festivals, conferences and community based organizations. In the early 1980s, Nicol screen films at the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax. Begun In 1999,"From Criminality to Equality" includes the films: Stand Together, the Queer Nineties, Politics of the Heart and The End of Second Class. Her work on lesbian and gay history also includes a number of shorts: Pride and Resistance, and Proud Lives. This body of work has received a number of honours including: the Elle Flanders Award for Best Documentary, Inside Out, Toronto, 2007 and 2006; Honourable Mention for Best Canadian Female Director in the shorts category, Inside Out, 2007; the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary, Image + Nation, Montréal, 2006; the Audience Choice Award, Making Scenes, Ottawa, 2002 and the John Bailey Completion Award, Inside Out, 2002.

In 2008, Nicol completed One Summer in New Paltz, A Cautionary Tale, (54 minutes) which investigates the civil disobedience same-sex marriage movement in the U.S.A during 2004. It was short-listed for the Derek Oyston CHE Film Prize, at the 23rd London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK, in 2008, an honour that celebrates films which contribute to the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. Nicol's recent scholarly publications include: "Politics of the Heart: recognition of homoparental families", in Who's Your Daddy? and other writings on queer parenting, ed. Rachel Epstein, Sumac Press, March, 2009; "Legal Struggles and Political Resistance: Same-Sex Marriage in Canada and the U.S". co-written with Miriam Smith, Sexualities, Sage Publications, December 2008, Vol 11, Issue 6, 667-687; and "Politics of the Heart: recognition of homoparental families", Florida Philosophical Review: Journal of the Florida Philosophical Association, University of Central Florida Department of Philosophy, Vol 8, issue 1, summer 2008.