Gita spent 12 years as the Artistic Director of Playing On The Moon Children’s Theatre Arts Centre and the Summer Performing Arts Experience, where her students earned more than 200 first-place awards from the Kiwanis Drama Festival. Prior to founding Playing On The Moon, she served as the Artistic Director of the City of Kitchener’s Outreach Theatre while also owning and operating the Backstage Theatre School.

Many of Gita’s former students have gone on to successful careers in the arts. Several can be seen on YTV and in major films; others are professional stage actors performing on Broadway, at the Stratford Festival of Canada, Drayton Festival Theatre, and in theatres around the world. Numerous students have also built careers in stage management and pre-production roles.

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In 1998, Gita was contracted by Family and Children’s Services of Waterloo Region and the Waterloo Region Community Action Program for Children to write and direct Kitchener-Waterloo’s first touring production addressing schoolyard bullying. The production, THINK, featured a cast of 12 youth performers and was so well received that it was invited to the 1999 Orlando International Fringe Festival.

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Gita also spent four years as a Child and Youth Worker and arts facilitator with Lutherwood Mental Health Services, working across Open Custody Units, a Residential Treatment Program, an Adolescent Male Sex Offender Group Home, Pioneer Youth Services’ Aggressive Male Group Home, the Betty Thompson Youth Centre, and Kiwanis House. She has provided successful arts enrichment for clients diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, Asperger’s, Pica, and other P.D.D.-spectrum conditions.

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When she is not teaching acting, building sets, or creating costumes, Gita is dreaming up her next production. Her shows are created not only to entertain but to educate the community. They frequently sell out and receive standing ovations.

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Selected Stage Productions
(written and/or directed by Gita unless otherwise noted)

2025

• Paper Dolls (written and directed by Gita; assistant directed by Hannah Findlay)

• The Magic Tree House (written with Hannah Findlay, and Maeve Sipes; co-directed by Gita and Hannah Findlay; assistant directed by Maeve Sipes)

2024

• SCOUT  (written with Chris Ashley; co-directed with Hannah Findlay)

• From The Top Step 2024 (directed)

2023

• Bill & Ted’s Daughters’ Historical Adventure (written with Chris Ashley; co-directed with Hannah Findlay)

• From The Top Step 2023 (directed)

• Mischief Theatre (directed with Hannah Findlay)

• The Next Episode (directed)

• Dear Dumb Wimpy Diary (directed; written with Gracie McGough and Addison Moore)

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Earlier Productions (Grouped for Brevity)

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• There’s Something About MATILDA (multiple stagings; written and directed/co-directed)

• Bill & Ted’s Historical Adventure (multiple stagings; written with Chris Ashley; directed/co-directed)

• UP! (directed)

• The Bully Effect (2012, 2013, 2015, 2018; written and directed with Chris Ashley)

• SCOUT (2017 and earlier versions; written and directed with Chris Ashley)

• Tales of a Fourth Grade Superfudge-A-Mania (multiple stagings; written and directed, including co-written version with Samantha Polzin)

• Wimpy: A Twisted Tale of Literacy / Wimpy: A Re-Twisted Tale of Literacy (multiple versions; written and directed, including adaptation written with award-winning screenwriter and former student Grayson Moore)

• SORRY WALT! (written and directed)

• THE CAGE BIRDS (co-directed with Meghan North; also staged again in later seasons)

• CLUE (stage play written by Gita; co-directed with Nic Saville)

• ROAR! (written and directed)

• Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children (written and directed)

• Ella Enchanted (written and directed)

• I AM SUPERGIRL! (written and directed)

• 17 Ways to Bomb Your College Interview (directed)

• It Runs In The Family (directed)

• Paper Dolls (written and directed)

• The Bald Soprano (directed)

• Get A Clue (directed)

• Oh Boy! (created and directed)

• A Not So Little Princess (written and directed)

• Girl On Fire (created and directed)

• There’s Something About Matilda (another staging; written and directed)

• Vimy (by Vern Thiessen; co-directed with Chris Ashley)

• The Secret Language of Girls (created and directed)

• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (stage play written by Gita)

• Bubba Begonia, You’ll Be Sorry (stage adaptation created and directed; based on the book by Gerry O’Brian)

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Gita is formally trained in Behaviour Management, Crisis Prevention, Intervention, and Risk Management. For the past nine summers, she has also led innovative programming at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts, where she has developed more than 20 original Theatre and Expressive Arts programs for highly creative young people. These include My Sister’s Keeper Theatre Arts Experience, Funny Girl Theatre Arts Experience, Dr. Seuss Theatre Arts Camp, Princess Protection Program, The Fabulous Fifties Theatre Arts Program, Harry Potter Expressive Arts Experience, Fairy Training Expressive Arts Program, and The House That Gita Built (Dollhouse-Making Program), among many others.