Throughout his time in Toronto, Prest has maintained a close relationship with the artist-led Soulpepper Theatre, collaborating across 12 seasons and 45 productions. For what was perhaps his most ambitious project to date, Prest served as director and writer for Soulpepper’s De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail (2025), a musical adaption of the letter the author addressed to his lover Lord Douglas while Wilde was in prison. Prest reimagines the source material, a 50,000 word reflection never intended for the stage, into a 100-minute fantasy that explores the author’s tumultuous relationships in operatic proportions. The project received six Dora award nominations and two wins, as well as a Toronto Theatre Critic’s Award for musical direction. 

A cross-disciplinary theatre-maker, Prest does not shy away from the stage. He has an impressive acting resume, with his most recent credits including The Inheritance at Canadian Stage (Dora Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble) and The Bidding War at Crow’s Theatre. On screen, Prest has a recurring role on Crave’s Pillow Talk, for which he and his castmates received a Canadian Screen Award Nomination in 2023. Over the past two decades, Prest has lent his expertise as a guest director and lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University, the University of Toronto, the National Theatre School, Sheridan College, and the Soulpepper Academy.

Our marketing and communications Intern, Lia Iannarilli, chatted with Gregory to learn more about his process and what inspires his work!

TC: What does the project’s title “The Observer Effect” convey in the broader context of your research into privacy and technology?

Nehal El-Hadi: I grew up in South London and, in the mid ’90s, CCTV was being installed throughout London. I have very strong memories of Oxford Street before the cameras were installed and then what installing the cameras did and how certain aspects of street life were eliminated through surveillance and policing, specifically Black street life. So I knew that surveillance could change the nature of a space. 

Ostensibly, it was for crime fighting, but what it did was make the street more consumptive, less experiential, more generic, less alive. It removed elements of the unexpected, enchantment, [it] became very bland. At the time, I was a young adult, and I didn’t theorize it. I was just like, “oh, it’s not the same anymore.” But that was where I would say my interest in surveillance, in technological surveillance specifically, was piqued. 

The Observer Effect is, in scientific research, how the very act of observing a thing changes the nature of the thing itself. And so with this understanding that we are under constant surveillance, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, we start adapting our behavior to it. 

TC: How did being conscious of surveillance factor into your conception of the project or what you wanted The Observer Effect to portray?

Nehal El-Hadi: People are becoming increasingly savvy, but in general, a lot of people, myself included, don’t know what information about them is collected, gathered, stored, and used to inform decisions about [their] life. If you walk down a street in downtown Toronto, you have no idea how many cameras have captured your image. You have security cameras, you have dashboard cams, you have police traffic cameras, you have people just filming and you’re in the background. 

All of that is being gathered. A lot of those are on live feeds. You don’t really know who’s collecting your information, what they’re doing with it. And because of that, I was really curious about what kind of information was being collected, who owned that information, and whether people had access to their own data or not. 

Before I did The Theatre Centre residency, I gave a public talk called Performing the Dataset, and it took from the psychological theory of “acting as if,” which is if you want to be something or if you want to correct a behavior, act as if you are that thing or as if you’ve resolved that behavior. For example, if there was a bus route that was being cut because it was “underutilized,” but communities relied on it, what activists should do is mobilize people to ride that bus to generate the ridership data that would ensure that the route would be kept. 

My argument was that it’s never ever about the information, it’s just used as an excuse. If [the city] wants to cut the route, they’re going to cut the route, regardless of what you do. But if we’re going to believe that these are data-informed decisions, then we should start learning how to perform data that would lead us towards a more just world.