One Small Misstep at Undercurrents 2025

Hello again!

It's Sandy Gibson and Silas Chinsen extending a huge thank you to those who made our 2023 cast recording and showcase of One Small Misstep possible. You can now hear the voices of Sam, Jim, Pawn the android and more on Youtube and Spotify, thanks to our talented cast and their fearless musical director and mixer Silas.

One Small Misstep Spotify Album

We’re going to space again in February 2025 with a full-length performance at undercurrents festival in Ottawa, and we’re looking to raise $5500 to ensure our family-friendly musical is out of this world. It will feature the full story of Sam, an ambitious orphan girl who lands her dream internship with an asteroid mining firm and finally gets to have her great adventure in outer space. Her dream comes crashing down, however, as she is attacked by Demona Firedrake, the most merciless pirate captain in the solar system, and left stranded on a distant asteroid.

This time, we’re joined by experienced director Rebecca Russell and stupendous stage manager Abigaile Gagnon. Silas and I are also lucky enough to be getting some funding, access to rehearsal space and a stellar venue courtesy of undercurrents, but we want our locally cast performers and crew to be fairly compensated for their time and effort. We’re also looking to do projected backdrops as well as costume pieces and other visuals to truly immerse the audience in the realm of science fiction.

We have applied for grants and we’re constantly on the lookout for new funding opportunities, but we’d deeply appreciate any contribution you deemed appropriate. Reaching our initial goal of $3000 would allow us to cast and pay the minimum number of performers needed to make the show happen. Attaining our stretch goal of $6000 would rocket the show out of low-earth orbit and on a trajectory to being one of the best homegrown musicals Ottawa has ever seen!

Who We Are

Rebecca Russell (she/her) is a Dora award-winning multidisciplinary performing artist and director based in Ottawa, Ontario.

Originally from Newfoundland, Rebecca holds a BA Combined Honours in Music and Theatre from Dalhousie University and has had the pleasure of working with both professional and community-engaged groups across Canada and beyond. Select directing team credits include “Help! I’m Trapped in a Musical” (OST), “Around the World in 80 Days” (Ottawa Little Theatre), “Newsies” (Orpheus Musical Theatre), “Godspell” (9th Hour Theatre Company), “Peter Pan,” “West Side Story,” and “High School Musical” (TLC). Select performance credits include various roles in “Macbeth” (a Company of Fools), the ‘Beggar Woman’ in “Sweeney Todd” (Paper Moon Theatre), ‘Sarah Brown’ in “Guys and Dolls” (Lost Baggage Musical Theatre), the ‘White Witch’ in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (9th Hour Theatre Company), AtG’s Messiah (Against the Grain Theatre), Fear of Flight (Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland), and three international tours with Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia. Rebecca is the Director of Development & Communications with Ottawa-based charity OrKidstra and a company member of PushPULL Dance.

Sandy Gibson is an Ottawa high school teacher as well as a theatre artist. In addition to One Small Misstep, he has written, produced and performed a few shows at the Ottawa Fringe festival including a solo show called Portable #3 and a Canadian History musical called Confedermix. As a teacher at the Ottawa School of Theatre, he arranged and directed short children’s plays and musicals. Lastly, if you need someone to produce or direct a Christmas pageant, Sandy is the guy to call!

Silas Chinsen is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, and choir director based in Guelph, Ontario. He holds a M.Mus and B.Mus in classical guitar and voice performance, and has work featured on Naxos Records. Silas creates music for choirs, solo guitar, and ambient scores for audio-visual collaborations, and musical theatre productions.

Silas graduated with the highest distinction from the University of Ottawa, and was twice the recipient of the Ed Honeywell Scholarship for Classical Guitar. He studied guitar with Patrick Roux and voice with Dillon Parmer, in addition to conducting with David Curry and Laurence Ewashko. Silas won the Ottawa Guitar Society's "Call for Scores" composition competition with his piece "Different Expectations", and has received various grants for his compositions, including the Guelph Arts Council Research and Renewal Award, the City of Guelph Artist In Residence Grant, and a TACTICS grant.

Silas creates music to elicit a unique and visceral emotional experience, with interests in extended harmonic and uncommon sonic textures. From modern classical compositions and arrangements, to pop-musical theatre, to ambient soundscapes using recordings of the sounds of nature, Silas treats each project as a new opportunity to push his own musical and creative boundaries to continue to develop his unique sound and skillset.

Abigaile Gagnon (Stage Manager) is an Ottawa-based stage manager who recently finished working on Macbeth with A Company of Fools. She has held the stage manager position with productions at the GCTC, the Port Stanley Theatre Festival, undercurrents, Ottawa Fringe and the University Players. Abigaile also has considerable wardrobe and costuming experience with the Blyth Theatre Festival and Propeller Dance.