For Immediate Release
January 8, 2021

Toronto – On Tuesday, January 5th, 2021, the ACTRA Toronto Council elected David Gale to succeed Theresa Tova as the new President of ACTRA Toronto. The President sits for a two-year term in accordance with the ACTRA Toronto By-laws.

David Gale is a Gemini and Galaxi award-winning performer with four decades of experience and his union leadership credentials are equally stellar. Gale has served for 13 years as ACTRA Toronto’s Vice President, Communications. He has chaired the union’s Conference Committee, published the Performers suite of magazines, served as exec liaison for the Young Emerging Actors Assembly (YEAA), ACTRA Toronto’s senior members’ Act Your Age (AYA) committee and, proudly helped establish outACTRAto, ACTRA Toronto’s first queer committee. Gale also sits on the Executive of ACTRA National and, in 2019, as co-chair of the Constitution and By-Laws Committee, helped usher in a more equitable governance for our National Union.

Gale paid tribute to Past President Theresa Tova and the Council for their tireless work on behalf of ACTRA Toronto members and committed to continue building the union’s strength, “Together we will work to create a star recognition system to showcase the incredible depth of talent of our performers, increase their work opportunities and confirm our status as a world-class production centre of  excellence.”

Gale also acknowledged the devastating effects of COVID on our province and the world. “No one ever really knows what lies around the corner. We must be able to turn on a dime. We must be prepared for whatever is thrown our way.”

David Gale, a long-time advocate and champion of equality and diversity in the industry, is the first openly gay President of ACTRA Toronto. Committing to the union’s work to address systemic discrimination, David said, “We will work together to make certain that every queer kid who wants to be a performer can come out and believe they can have a viable career, free from discrimination, homophobia or transphobia, right here in Ontario. No queer actor should ever hear their agent say that they’d get more work if they sounded ‘less gay’ or looked ‘more feminine’ or ‘chose a gender’. Together we’re going to fight for Black, Indigenous, Brown, Asian, Latinx, persons with disabilities, queers, women and seniors to have more representation in our union and in our industry.”

ACTRA Toronto is the largest organization within ACTRA, representing more than 15,000 of Canada’s 22,000 professional performers working in recorded media. As an advocate for Canadian culture since 1943, ACTRA is a member-driven union that continues to secure rights and respect for the work of professional performers.

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Media Contact: Karen Woolridge, Public Relations Officer, Mobile: (416) 937-1437 kwoolridge@actratoronto.com