Q with Tom Power

Antoni Cimolino is beginning his final season as the artistic director of Ontario’s Stratford Festival, the largest repertory theatre company in North America. Antoni started working at Stratford as an actor in 1988, eventually becoming a director at the festival, and then moving up to the role of artistic director in 2012. He joins Tom to talk about his life in theatre, the challenges he’s faced along the way, and why he’s chosen The Tempest as his Shakespearean swan song. 

Louisa Levy had never even been to a hockey game when she was offered the job to showrun Off Campus, a steamy hockey romance TV show. Before that, she had been a writer and producer on other critically acclaimed shows like The Flight Attendant, Stumptown, and Death and Other Details. Louisa tells guest host Gill Deacon how she developed a love of hockey and why she thinks the hockey romance genre — made popular by Heated Rivalry — has suddenly exploded. 

Canadian content creator Jasmeet Raina is back with the third season of Late Bloomer, a half-hour comedy series inspired by his own life as a turban-wearing Punjabi Canadian millennial. He talks to Tom Power about learning the world of television, how he’s evolved from feeling like an “imposter” in the industry, and what it’s like to receive over a dozen Canadian Screen Award nominations for a show he fought to make happen.

Arizona O’Neill is a Montreal-based writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and outlets. In her debut graphic novel Opioids and Organs, she takes a deep dive into the history and ethics of organ donation and transplantation. Arizona tells Tom Power about how her father’s death and subsequent organ donation a decade ago led her down the path to making this book. She also discusses the creative influence of both her parents and how the process of creating Opioids and Organs helped her process her grief and anger.

Since the 1960s, Bruce Allen has been one of the key architects of this nation’s music industry. His management roster reads like a history of Canadian popular music: Bryan Adams, Anne Murray, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Michael Bublé. As he receives a Lifetime Achievement Award at Toronto’s Departure Festival this month, Allen tells Tom Power about his journey from Vancouver club booker to industry titan, as well as his reputation as an outspoken agitator that’s generated his share of controversies.

Chloe Tang began her music journey as a classically trained pianist and vocalist. But the Canadian musician yearned to be the next Avril Lavigne. When she moved to L.A. to pursue her pop music dreams, her parents weren’t supportive. But the risk paid off: Dua Lipa asked Tang to open for her. Now, Tang is a fully independent artist with over 10 million streams of her music. She joins Tom Power to talk about opening for Dua Lipa, embracing who she really is in her music, and being highlighted by the Departure Festival as one of their 2026 Rising Sound Artists.

Machel Montano is known as the King of Soca, and is widely credited with bringing Soca music to the global stage. In 2025, the Trinidadian singer, songwriter and producer became the first Soca artist to perform on NPR’s Tiny Desk, garnering over a million views. But he also took time off from his music career to get a master's degree in Carnival Studies from the University of Trinidad and Tobago, and has a wealth of knowledge on the history of Soca. His new documentary, Like Ah Boss: Journey of a Soca King, follows his illustrious 40-year career from child star in Trinidad to global icon. Machel joins Tom Power to discuss the history of Carnival and what’s next for his career, as well as settle some Caribbean food debates.

Ebril is an Iraqi Canadian artist who blends a range of influences into her music. Her debut album, In Copula, took six years to complete because she taught herself to produce, sing and write songs by watching YouTube tutorials. But it paid off: the opening track, Stranger in You, has taken on a life of its own, surpassing one billion views on TikTok. Ebril talks to Tom Power about her personal growth journey, learning how to play several instruments and her song’s viral moment.

Mac Barnett did something he said he never would: he wrote a book for adults. Make Believe is the award-winning children’s author’s newest book about how kids' books deserve a grown-up conversation. Mac joins guest host Gill Deacon to talk about writing for adults, why children’s fiction deserves more respect, and why he has such a problem with didacticism in kids’ books. 

When the Nova Scotian writer Graeme Bezanson sat down to write his new collection of poetry about boyhood and toxic masculinity, he drew inspiration from two unlikely sources: the changing positions of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites and an interview transcript between manosphere influencers Tucker Carlson and Andrew Tate. Graeme sat down with Tom Power to discuss his debut poetry collection Ultra Blue, how he examines the emotional lives of boys and men, and raising a son in a culture of toxic masculinity.