CATT FILIPPOV is a Russian-Canadian playmaker Zooming in from Toronto, Ontario.

Her path to Columbia has been a winding one. After a brief stint teaching yoga to minor-league hockey players and studying “nutrition” at the University of British Columbia, Catt emerged, sweating, into the summer of 2017 clutching an Honours B.A. in Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies from the University of Toronto. She has spent the past three years auditioning for an endless parade of bread commercials and stretching her hamstrings.

A life-long poet, Catt has picked up the proverbial quill where her grandfather, Boris, left off. In her first play, The Stray Sheep Cabaret: Or, How to Become a Ghost and Stay That Way, which was developed as part of Nightwood Theatre’s Write From the Hip emerging playwrights program in 2019, she fictionalizes his death in order to investigate her Fatherland’s habit of muzzling its truth-tellers.

She looks forward to making it to New York City someday, where she will continue to examine death, the hilarious absurdity of being alive, and what it would mean to make a “Gonzo” play. Hail Yourselves!