Marissa Orjalo

Marissa Orjalo is a Canadian actress who grew up in Oshawa, Ontario. Marissa's mother is of French, Irish descent, and her father is Filipino making Marissa a mixed actress who is passionately involved in ethnic inclusion within the industry. At 22 years old, Marissa graduated from Sheridan College and The University of Toronto earning a diploma in acting and a degree in theatre academics respectively. She has been acting in film, television, commercials, and theatre productions since the age of five. Marissa frequently visited Toronto as a young girl to audition and film. Her first theatre performance was as Little Cosette in Les Miserables (2006) at Monsignor Paul Dwyer C.H.S. under the direction of Michael Schneider where she discovered her love of singing and onstage performance. Following her Les Miserables experience, she has also been in shows such as The Sound of Music (2011), The Music Man (2012), and Hairspray (2013), Footloose (2014), and Godspell (2015). At age 7, she began taking vocal lessons specializing in Opera. Following a few years later, she began playing the piano and began training with The Royal Conservatory of Music under the instruction of Lorna Brain (for voice) and Jo-Anne Westover (for piano). She now holds a level 10 in Royal Conservatory voice with the ability to sing in multiple languages as well as a level 8 in Royal Conservatory piano. At the age of 16, Marissa began attending The Stratford Festival School, first joining in their Musical Theatre King's Company, and then moving forward at the age of 18 to audition for their Theatre Performance Intensive (TPI) Company; a rigorous and extremely selective training opportunity offered for young actors. During her time at Sheridan College and The University of Toronto, Marissa has done productions as Olivia in Twelfth Night (2017), as Anderson in Fletcher and Anderson Forget the Launch Codes (2018), as Clotho in Metamorphoses (2018), and as Sabrina Daldry in The Next Room (Or the Vibrator Play) (2019). Marissa frequents the theatre scene in Toronto and will be appearing as Hermia in Driftwood Theatre's production of A (Musical) Midsummer Night's Dream in the summer of 2019.