Famous Playwrights from Canada
Adam Bock
Adam Bock is a Canadian playwright currently living in the United States. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In the fall of 1984, Bock studied at the National Theater Institute at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. He is an artistic associate of the Shotgun Players, an award-winning San Francisco theater group. His play Medea Eats was produced in 2000 by Clubbed Thumb, which subsequently premiered his play The Typographer's Dream in 2002. Five Flights was produced in New York City by the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2004.The Thugs opened Off-Off-Broadway in a production by SoHo Rep in October 2006, directed by Anne Kauffman. He won a 2006-07 Obie award, Playwriting, for The Thugs.During the 2007-2008 New York theatrical season, two plays by Bock were produced Off Broadway: The Receptionist at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2007 and The Drunken City, originally commissioned by the Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, New York, at Playwrights Horizons. Bock is openly gay and often writes about homosexuality. He is quoted as saying "I'm a gay playwright. I like being called a gay playwright. It's who I am. It's how I write. I have a very specific take on the world because I'm gay."Bock has been nominated for two 2007-2008 Outer Critics Circle Awards. Both The Receptionist and The Drunken City were nominated for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. In 2012, he won a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for his work.Bock's play A Small Fire ran December 16, 2010 – January 23, 2011 Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, under the direction of Trip Cullman. A Life premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on September 30, 2016 (previews), starring David Hyde Pierce and directed by Anne Kauffman. A Life was nominated for the 2017 Drama Desk Awards: Outstanding Play; David Hyde Pierce as Outstanding Actor in a Play; Anne Kauffman for Outstanding Director of a Play; Laura Jellinek for Outstanding Set Design for a Play; and Mikhail Fiksel for Outstanding Sound Design in a Play.- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
Agnes Walsh
Age: 75Agnes Walsh (born 1950, Placentia) is a Canadian actor, poet, playwright and storyteller from Newfoundland. Walsh has won Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters awards for poetry as well as TickleAce poetry and ballad writing awards. Her poems have been translated into French and Portuguese. She has toured Canada, the eastern United States, Portugal, and Ireland reading from her work. Walsh is also the founder of the Tramore Theatre Troupe on the Cape Shore of Placentia Bay, an ensemble dedicated to preserving and presenting the oral history of that area. The group has performed to packed houses in both Newfoundland and Ireland and hosted Irish cultural exchanges to the Cape Shore area. She has adapted an Icelandic novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Halldor Laxness for the theatre. In 2006, she was named the first poet laureate for St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.- Birthplace: Placentia, Canada
- Alden Albert Nowlan (; January 25, 1933 – June 27, 1983) was a Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright.
- Birthplace: Stanley, Nova Scotia, Canada
Alisa Palmer
Alisa Palmer is a Canadian theatre director and playwright. Born and raised in New Brunswick, Canada, Alisa Palmer completed a degree in history at McGill University. Her theatre education was based in Montreal and included training with Philippe Gaulier of L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (Bouffon and Masque Neutre), Cirque du Soleil (acrobatics), L'École de Mime Corporel de Montréal under Jean Asselin as well as periods of study with Brazilian director Augusto Boal. Palmer has an eclectic and robust directorial style, and has worked on such diverse projects as her own A Play About the Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo, which made a compelling use of the Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, a production of Pal Joey at the Shaw Festival in 2004, and several plays by Ann-Marie MacDonald, whom she married in 2003. She was a resident director of Mirvish Productions' The Lord of the Rings in Toronto. She has served as the artistic director of the English section of the National Theatre School of Canada since 2012.- Birthplace: New Brunswick, Canada
- Allan Stratton (born 1951) is a Canadian playwright and novelist.
- Birthplace: Stratford, Canada
Amiel Gladstone
Age: 53Amiel Gladstone is a Canadian playwright and director. A graduate of the University of Victoria, Gladstone is a founder of Theatre Skam, an alternative theatre company in Victoria, BC and is the former Artistic Associate at Caravan Farm Theatre and the Belfry Theatre. Gladstone's plays have been produced across Canada, as well as in New York, Philadelphia, Colmar, France, and Bucharest, Romania. He has worked as a director or playwright for numerous companies including Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club Theatre, Touchstone Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, working on plays by people such as Veda Hille, Bill Richardson, Sean Dixon, Morris Panych, Melissa James Gibson. He currently lives in Vancouver. Gladstone has also worked as a voice director for the English adaptation of several Japanese anime TV series, including Cardcaptor Sakura and Mobile Suit Gundam. In 2007, Coach House Books published a collection of Gladstone's plays, entitled Hippies and Bolsheviks and Other Plays.- Ann-Marie MacDonald (born October 29, 1958) is a Canadian playwright, novelist, actress and broadcast host who lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The daughter of a member of Canada's military, she was born at an air force base near Baden-Baden, West Germany. She is of Lebanese descent through her mother.MacDonald won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel, Fall on Your Knees, which was selected as a "pick" for Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. She received the Governor General's Award for Drama, the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award and the Canadian Authors Association Award for her play, Goodnight Desdemona. MacDonald hosted the CBC documentary series Life and Times for seven seasons and CBC's flagship documentary program, Doc Zone for eight. She appeared in the films I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and Better Than Chocolate, among others. Her 2003 novel, The Way the Crow Flies, was partly inspired by the Steven Truscott case. Her novel Adult Onset was released in 2014 and is so far translated into five languages. She was the inaugural Mordecai Richler Reading Room Writer in Residence at Concordia University, and she coaches students in the Acting and Playwriting Programs at the National Theatre School of Canada. MacDonald is married to playwright and theatre director Alisa Palmer.
- Birthplace: Baden-Baden, West Germany
- Antonine Maillet, (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃tɔnin majɛ]; born May 10, 1929) is an Acadian novelist, playwright, and scholar. She was born in Bouctouche, New Brunswick.
- Birthplace: Bouctouche, Canada
- Antony Holland was an actor who appeared in "The Accused," "Strange Luck," and "Cousins."
- Birthplace: Tiverton, Devon, England, UK
Bernard Slade
Age: 94Bernard Slade (born May 2, 1930) is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter.- Birthplace: St. Catharines, Canada
- Bill Gaston (born January 14, 1953 in Tacoma, Washington) is a Canadian novelist, playwright and short story writer. Gaston grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Toronto, Ontario, and North Vancouver, British Columbia. Aside from teaching at various universities, he has worked as a logger, salmon fishing guide, group home worker and, most exotically, playing hockey in the south of France. He is married (to writer Dede Crane) with four children and lives in Victoria BC, where he teaches at the University of Victoria. He has three degrees from the University of British Columbia and played varsity hockey for the UBC Thunderbirds.
- Brad Fraser (born June 28, 1959 in Edmonton, Alberta) is a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and cultural commentator. He is one of the most widely produced Canadian playwrights both in Canada and internationally. His plays typically feature a harsh yet comical view of contemporary life in Canada, including frank depictions of sexuality, drug use and violence.
- Birthplace: Edmonton, Canada
Brian Shein
Dec. at 41 (1947-1988)Brian Shein (1947–1988) was a Canadian playwright. He studied at the University of British Columbia, graduating with a B.A. (Hons.) in 1968. His works include Theatrical Exhibitions (1975) and The Canadian Book of the Dead (1985).C. E. Gatchalian
Age: 50C.E. "Chris" Gatchalian (born June 5, 1974) is a Canadian playwright, born in Vancouver, British Columbia to Filipino parents, he holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Theatre from the University of British Columbia. His play Motifs & Repetitions aired on Bravo! (Canada) in 1997 and on the Knowledge in 1998. His other produced plays include Claire, Crossing, Broken and People Like Vince, a play for young audiences about mental health. His latest play, Falling in Time, had its world premiere in Vancouver in November 2011 and was published by Scirocco Drama in 2012. In 2013 he won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize, a prize presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an openly LGBT writer.- Birthplace: Vancouver, Canada
- Caroline Azar is a director and playwright of both Sephardic Jewish (Lebanese, Italian and Spanish) and Ashkenazi Jewish (Russian) extraction. She was the lead singer, keyboardist and co-lyricist/composer of the band Fifth Column.
- Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non-naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes.
- Birthplace: London, United Kingdom
- Charles Dennis (born December 16, 1946) is a Canadian actor, playwright, radio actor, journalist, author, director, and screenwriter.
- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
Charles William Bell
Dec. at 61 (1876-1938)Charles William Bell (25 April 1876 – 8 February 1938) was a Canadian playwright, lawyer and politician, born in Hamilton, Ontario. He was Rocco Perri's lawyer. Bell attended Hamilton Collegiate Institute and Trinity College, University of Toronto. He was called to the bar in 1899, after studies at Osgoode Hall. He practiced law in Toronto before moving back to Hamilton, and worked for a couple of local law firms before setting up his own firm, Bell & Yates. Before 1930 he defended thirteen men on murder charges and all were acquitted. In the mid-1930s he defended David Meisner, accused of kidnapping London Beer Tycoon John Labatt. Despite a valiant effort by Bell (he only charged $400, most of which went to research and getting witnesses to come from the States - he was left with less than $125) to prove Meisner's innocence, the jury found him guilty and the judge sentenced him to 15 years in the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario. Bell maintained that Meisner was innocent, and wrongly accused, even writing a book about it: "Who Said Murder?" published by Macmillan in Toronto in 1935. It was later found that Meisner was innocent, and he was acquitted.He entered the world of politics and represented Hamilton West as a Conservative candidate in the 1925 Dominion election and won with a majority of 12,000 votes. Elected again in 1926 and 1930 and stepped down in 1935 due to the death of his son, Kenneth Clifford in an auto accident. He also enjoyed the theatre and became a playwright for a number of comedic plays. Bell's first successful play was Her First Divorce, which opened at the Comedy Theater on Broadway in New York in May 1913. His most successful play was Parlor, Bedroom and Bath, which opened in 1917 and ran for 232 performances. The play was twice made into a film, the first time in 1920, and again in 1931 starring Buster Keaton. Combining law and theatre came naturally for he believed that watching an audience's reaction to his plays helped him to judge the character of witnesses in court. Bell would write in the morning before going to court or his law offices. Bell was also a member of All Saints' Anglican Church and former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral in 1938. Bell was buried in Woodland Cemetery.- Birthplace: Hamilton, Canada
- Charlie Rhindress (born May 9, 1966) is an actor, author, playwright and director living in his hometown of Amherst, Nova Scotia. He was educated at Mount Allison University and is a co-founder and former Artistic Director of Live Bait Theatre, based in Sackville, New Brunswick. To date, Rhindress has had sixteen of his plays produced, including The Maritime Way of Life, which was nominated for a Canadian Comedy award as best new play, and Flying On Her Own, based on the life of the late Canadian singer/songwriter, Rita MacNeil. It was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2008. Charlie has written or co-written more than 30 dinner theatre scripts and two plays for teens. His first book, I'm Not What I Seem - The Many Stories of Rita MacNeil's Life was published by Formac Publishing in 2016. It was a bestseller in the Maritimes and was short listed for the Best First Book Award from the Atlantic Books Awards. His second book, “Stompin’ Tom Connors: The Myth and the Man - An Unauthorized Biography,” will be released on September 16, 2019. Rhindress has acted in films and television programs including Red Rover, Black Eyed Dog, "Trailer Park Boys," "Haven," and "Mr. D" and at theatres across Canada. His directing credits include the premiere of Cathy Jones' one woman show, Me, Dad and the Hundred Boyfriends at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto and The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged) at Neptune Theatre in Halifax, for which he received a Merritt award nomination as Best Director. He is the former Associate Artist for Neptune and a former Artistic Producer of Eastern Front Theatre. The Canadian Encyclopedia says that Rhindress's work "suggests that New Brunswick is fertile ground for popular comedy. Of particular note is Rhindress's The Maritime Way of Life (1999), a dark satire on traditional East Coast lifestyles and personalities. Despite its vicious sarcasm, extensive cross-dressing, and absurd humour, The Maritime Way of Life is very popular with Atlantic audiences." Three of Rhindress's plays have been produced at Ship's Company Theatre in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia: Ivor Johnson's Neighbours (2009), The Maritime Way of Life (2012) and Making Contact (2013).
- Birthplace: Canada, Amherst
- Chris Bourke Doty (September 8, 1966 – February 2, 2006) was a Canadian journalist, historian, award-winning documentary filmmaker, author and playwright, noted for his many contributions to the cultural life of his hometown of London, Ontario. A graduate of Tecumseh Public School, London South Collegiate Institute and the journalism school at the University of Western Ontario in 1991, Doty grew up on tree-lined Lyndhurst Place in old south London, where he was a paper boy for The London Free Press during his formative years.
Chris Ward
Age: 67Chris Ward is an English/Canadian Film/Theatre Director and Playwright, born in 1958. From 1979-82 attended the London International Film School. His play Demonstration of Affection was produced at the Arts Theatre in 1981, starring Richard Jobson of The Skids. From 1982 until 1996, he produced and directed his own work for Wet Paint Theatre Company, in various fringe and pub theatre venues in London, as well as performing dramatic scenes at punk concerts. The company was distinguished by its mixing of professional trained actors with musicians (often from punk bands) and non-professional artistes. Amongst the performers who passed through the ranks of Wet Paint were, Simon Tedd (Simon Scardanelli), Honey Bane, Beki Bondage, Max Splodge, Michelle Brigandage, George Cheex from !Action Pact! Ruth Radish ( from punk band 'Hagar the Womb) and Jenny Runacre. His play about Jean Vigo, Love's A Revolution, was the basis of the 1998 film Vigo, directed by Julien Temple. Previously, Ward had collaborated with Derek Jarman on a number of unrealised film projects, including a film of Ward's play Camberwell Beautyand a proposed television project on the life of Jean Cocteau.Plastic Zion was revived at the White Bear Theatre in London in 2006.In 2008 Ward wrote and directed short film What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor (based on the life of artist/model Nina Hamnett, self-styled Queen of Bohemia starring Siobhan Fahey (ex singer with Bananarama and Shakespears Sister),the actor Clive Arrindel, Donny Tourette (frontman with punk band Towers of London) and Honey Bane (former vocalist of the punk band Fatal Microbes). The same year saw a revival of Demonstration of Affection at The Foundry in London. In 2012, his filmscript, Visions in the Life of the Victorian poet Francis Thompson 'Hound' was staged at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. The following year, 2013, he wrote and directed a feature film based on his play 'Camberwell Beauty' with the performers Jenny Runacre, Clive Arrindell and Lindsay Armaou from the girl band B*witched taking major roles. This is due for release in 2014.d'bi.young
Age: 48d’bi.young anitafrika is a Jamaican-Canadian feminist dub poet and activist. Her work includes theatrical performances, four published collections of poetry, twelve plays, and seven albums.- Birthplace: Jamaica
Dan Needles
Dan Needles is best known as the playwright behind the popular Wingfield Series which has played across Canada for many years. It was performed at the Stratford Festival of Canada and was aired, in part, on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Bravo Channel. Needles' childhood was divided between Toronto and his family's farm at Rosemont, Ontario. While working as editor for a local newspaper in Shelburne, he created the character of Walt Wingfield, a retired stockbroker turned farmer who told about his adventures on the farm in weekly letters to the editor. In 1985, Needles launched the series with 'Letter From Wingfield Farm' performed by actor Rod Beattie. Six sequels followed, including Wingfield's Progress (1987), Wingfield's Folly (1990), Wingfield Unbound (1997), Wingfield on Ice (2001), Wingfield's Inferno (2005), and Wingfield: Lost and Found (2009). Needles currently writes columns for Country Guide Magazine and Small Farm Canada. His book With Axe and Flask, The History of Persephone Township from Pre-Cambrian Times to the Present was the winner of the 2003 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. His most recent book is a collection of the first through seventh Wingfield plays entitled Wingfield's World. Letters From Wingfield Farm and Wingfield's Hope contain the first through third and fourth through sixth plays, respectively. Needles' other plays include The Perils of Persephone, Ed's Garage and The Last Christmas Turkey. On December 26, 2014, Dan Needles was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada by David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, for "celebrating our rural communities as the playwright of the much-loved Wingfield Farm series, and for championing the dramatic arts outside of Canada’s major centres."Daniel Brooks
Age: 66Daniel Brooks (born 23 June 1958) is a Canadian theatre director, actor and playwright. He is well known in the Toronto theatre scene for his innovative productions and script-writing collaborations.- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Daniel David Moses (born February 18, 1952) is a First Nations poet and playwright from Canada. Moses, of Delaware descent on his father's side and Tuscarora descent on his mother's, was born in Ohsweken, Ontario, and raised on a farm on the Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario, Canada. In 2003, Moses joined the department of drama at Queen's University as an assistant professor. In 2019, he was appointed Professor Emeritus by Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. He has worked as an independent artist since 1979 as a poet, playwright, dramaturge, editor, essayist, teacher, and writer-in-residence with institutions as varied as Theatre Passe Muraille, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Theatre Kingston, the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Windsor, the University of Toronto, the Sage Hill Writing Experience, McMaster University and Concordia University. He is openly gay, and also claims "brothers and sisters among Two-Spirit people." Some of his works, therefore, reflect upon and explore the complexities of Native Two-Spirit or Queer identities.
- Birthplace: Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada
- Daniel MacIvor was an accomplished actor who led an impressive career, primarily on the big screen. MacIvor kickstarted his acting career in comedies like "Dear John" (1988) starring Valerie Buhagiar, "My Addiction" (1994) with Caroline Gillis and Ellen-Ray Hennessey and the Daniel MacIvor film "House" (1996). His passion for acting continued to his roles in projects like the comedic drama "My Summer Vacation" (1996) with Clinton Walker, "The Last Supper" (1996) and the Jamie Shannon comedy "Hayseed" (1997). He also appeared in the Christopher Lloyd comedy "Dinner at Fred's" (1998), "Beefcake" (1999) and "Bubbles Galore" (1999). Film continued to be his passion as he played roles in the Michael Achtman experimental "Uncut" (1999), the Molly Parker dramatic comedy "The Five Senses" (2000) and the Simon McBurney dramatic biopic "Eisenstein" (2002). He also appeared in "Wilby Wonderful" (2004) and the dramedy "Whole New Thing" (2007) with Callum Keith Rennie. He also worked in television during these years, including a part on "Twitch City" (2000-01). MacIvor most recently wrote the foreign "Trigger" (2011) with Molly Parker.
- Birthplace: Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Darrell Wasyk (born 18 May 1958 in Edmonton, Alberta) is a Canadian film director.
- Birthplace: Edmonton, Canada
- Dave Carley is a Canadian playwright. He has written for stage, radio and television. His plays have had over 450 productions, and have been produced across Canada and the United States, and in other countries. His plays have won, or been nominated for, a number of awards, including the Governor General's Award (Writing with our Feet, finalist), The Chalmers Award, The Dora Award, The Arthur Miller Award (University of Michigan) and the New York International Radio Festival Award. He was a founder of Friends of Freddy, an association for the appreciation of the Freddy the Pig series of books of Walter Brooks. He was an Editor of The Kawartha Sun, the founding editor of the Playwrights Guild of Canada magazine, CanPlay, and also editor of Scirocco Drama in the late 1990s. Before that, beginning in 1990, Carley was the radio drama script editor at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and he continues to write for the CBC. He was script editor for the Wendy Lill drama series Backbencher, and wrote three episodes for the second season, which began broadcast in January 2011. Carley was born in Peterborough, Ontario, where he attended Queen Alexandra Public School and Adam Scott Collegiate. He received a Bachelor of Arts from The University of Toronto (University College) and an LL.B. from Queen's University in Kingston. He is an active member in a number of organizations, including Playwrights Guild of Canada, and Amnesty International as well as serving as Chair of the Dance and Opera Divisions for the Toronto's Dora Mavor Moore Awards. Dave was the winner of the 2012 Maggie Bassett Award, which is given for significant and sustained contribution to theatre in Ontario. Dave continues to write for the stage and a new work about the death penalty, Twelve Hours, premiered in March, 2014 at the Garden Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch called it "90 minutes of gripping theatre". Twelve Hours was published by Scirocco Press in Spring, 2015. More recently, Dave's stage adaptation of A Splinter of the Heart, the novel by Al Purdy, was premiered by the Festival Players of Prince Edward County in August 2016. Dave's latest play, Canadian Rajah, is based on the life of Esca Brooke Daykin, eldest son of Charles Brooke, the second "White Rajah of Sarawak". It premiered in January 2019 at Campbell House, Toronto. The brother of Gord Carley, author of Surviving Adversity, Dave Carley lives in Toronto.
- Birthplace: Peterborough, Canada
David Fennario
Age: 77David William Fennario, born David Wiper is a Canadian playwright best known for Balconville, his bilingual dramatization of life in working-class Montreal, for which he won the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award. A committed socialist, Fennario was a candidate for the Union des forces progressistes in 2003 and for Québec solidaire in 2007. He has been the subject of two National Film Board of Canada documentaries, David Fennario's Banana Boots and Fennario: His World On Stage. His pen name, "Fennario," given to him by a former girlfriend, is from a Bob Dylan song, "Pretty Peggy-O."- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
David French
Dec. at 71 (1939-2010)David French, OC (January 18, 1939 – December 5, 2010) was a Canadian playwright.- Birthplace: Coley's Point, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
- David Arthur Watmough (August 17, 1926 - August 4, 2017) was a Canadian playwright, short story writer and novelist. Watmough was born in London, England, and attended King's College London. He has worked as a reporter (the Cornish Guardian, a 'Talks Producer' (BBC Third Programme) and an editor (Ace Books). He immigrated to Canada in 1960, to Kitsilano in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he lived for 40 years with his partner, ex-Californian Floyd St. Clair (1930–2009), an opera critic and, from 1963 till his retirement in 1996, a University of British Columbia French professor. He became a Canadian citizen in 1967.Watmough lived from 2004 to 2009 in Boundary Bay and before his death had been living at Crofton Manor, a Vancouver assisted-living facility. In 2008 he published his autobiography, "Myself Through Others: Memoirs".
- Birthplace: London, United Kingdom
David Widdicombe
Age: 63David Widdicombe (27 May 1962 - 10 July 2017) was a Canadian filmmaker and playwright. His most successful work is Santa Baby (2006), which he directed and wrote. Widdicombe was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre and had been nominated for the Norman Jewison Award for Directing. He had also been playwright-in-residence at Toronto's Factory Theatre. Widdicombe's stage plays include The River Lady (Winner of the National Playwrighting Competition,) Dinosaur Dreams, Swamp Baby & Other Tales, and Wake (named one of the top ten plays at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival Fringe). In 2001, his play Science Fiction won the Prix Aurora Award and was nominated for four Dora Mavor Moore Awards including Outstanding New Play. Santa Baby won Best Film Comedy at the 2006 Los Angeles International Short Film Festival and was named Best Screenplay at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto.- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
David Young
Age: 78David Samuel D'Arcy Young (born 17 July 1946 Oakville, Ontario) is a Canadian playwright, novelist, and screenwriter.Born in Oakville, Ontario, Young studied at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of seven plays, two novels and several screenplays and teleplays. Two of his plays, Inexpressible Island and Glenn, have been nominated for multiple Canadian drama awards. The play, Fire, received four Dora Mavor Moore Awards as well as the Chalmers/Toronto Drama Bench Award. Young is also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community, and a trustee of the Griffin Prize for Excellence in Poetry.- Birthplace: Oakville, Canada
- Diane Flacks is a Canadian comedic actress, screenwriter and playwright.
- Birthplace: Montreal, Lachine, Canada
Douglas Craven
Age: 61Drew Hayden Taylor
Age: 62Drew Hayden Taylor (born 1 July 1962) is a Canadian playwright, author and journalist.Edward E. Rose
Dec. at 77 (1862-1939)Edward E. Rose was a playwright.- Birthplace: Stanstead, Canada
Eileen Whitfield
Age: 74- Emma Donoghue (born 24 October 1969) is an Irish-Canadian playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award. and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. Room was adapted into a film of the same name, for which Donoghue wrote the screenplay which was subsequently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
- Birthplace: Dublin, Republic of Ireland
- Eric Patrick Nicol (December 28, 1919 – February 2, 2011) was a Canadian writer, best known as a longtime humour columnist for the Vancouver, British Columbia newspaper The Province. He also published over 40 books, both original works and compilations of his humour columns, and won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour three times.
- Birthplace: Kingston, Canada
Erika Ritter
Age: 76Erika Ritter (born 26 April 1948) is a Canadian playwright and humorist. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, she attended Sacred Heart Academy for High School, studied drama at McGill University and the University of Toronto. In addition to her published work, she has written and hosted programming for CBC Radio. Ritter was host of Saturday Stereo Theatre (1983–1984), Dayshift (1985–88), Air Craft (1988–1990) and Ontario Morning (2000–2005). She has also served as guest host on numerous programs, including As It Happens, The Sunday Edition, The Arts Tonight, Here and Now and Fresh Air, all on CBC Radio One.Two of her plays, The Passing Scene and Murder at McQueen, have been produced at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre.- Birthplace: Regina, Canada
- Évelyne de la Chenelière is a Canadian writer and actress. She is best known for her plays Désordre public, which won the Governor General's Award for French-language drama in 2006, and Bashir Lazhar, which was the screenplay basis for the 2011 film Monsieur Lazhar. As an actress, de la Chenelière had supporting roles in Monsieur Lazhar, L'Âge des ténèbres and Café de Flore, as well as working extensively on stage. She published her first novel, La concordance des temps, in 2011.
- Birthplace: Canada, Québec
Françoise Loranger
Dec. at 81 (1913-1995)Françoise Loranger (June 18, 1913 – April 5, 1995) was a Canadian playwright, radio producer, theatrical writer and feminist. She was born in Saint-Hilaire.- Gail Dianne Bowen (née Bartholomew; born 22 September 1942) is a Canadian playwright and writer of mystery novels. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Bowen was educated at the University of Toronto, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964.She then studied at the University of Waterloo, where she received a master's degree in 1975, and the University of Saskatchewan. She subsequently taught English in Saskatchewan, and was associate professor of English at First Nations University of Canada before retiring from teaching. She currently lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.Bowen's mystery novels feature Joanne Kilbourn, a widowed mother, political analyst and university professor who finds herself occasionally involved in criminal investigations in various parts of Saskatchewan. Many have been adapted as Canadian television movies by Shaftesbury Films. Several of her plays have been produced, including Dancing in Poppies, an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, The Tree and an adaptation of Peter Pan, all premiering at the Globe Theatre in Regina. Her radio play Dr. Dolittle was broadcast on CBC Radio in 2006. She wrote The World According to Charlie D., a radio play focusing on the radio talk show host from her Joanne Kilbourn mysteries, broadcast on CBC Radio in 2007. A follow-up episode about Charlie D. aired in August 2008 as part of the WorldPlay series, airing on public radio networks in six English-speaking countries. In 2010, the first of a series of mystery novellas about Charlie D. was published. Bowen was selected as the writer-in-residence for the Regina Public Library from September 2013 to May 2014. She has previously served as writer in residence at the Toronto Reference Library (2009) and Calgary's Memorial Park Library (2010).
- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Prolific, versatile character player, in films from the early 1920s. Daughter June Lockhart (born 1925) began appearing in movies in the 1940s and on TV in the 50s, notably in the series "Lassie" (1955-64) and "Lost in Space" (1965-66).
- Birthplace: London, Ontario, Canada
George Boyd
George Elroy Boyd is a Canadian playwright and a former co-host of the CBC Morning News.- Birthplace: Nova Scotia, Canada
- George Elliott Clarke, (born February 12, 1960) is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015 and as the 2016-2017 Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work is known largely for its use of a vast range of literary and artistic traditions (both "high" and "low"), its lush physicality and its bold political substance. One of Canada's most illustrious poets, Clarke is also known for chronicling the experience and history of the Black Canadian communities of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that he has coined "Africadia".
- Birthplace: Three Mile Plains, Nova Scotia, Canada
George F. Walker
Age: 77George F. Walker (born August 23, 1947) is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter. He is one of Canada's most prolific playwrights, and also one of the most widely produced Canadian dramatists both in Canada and internationally.- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Hannah Moscovitch (born June 5, 1978) is a Canadian playwright who rose to national prominence in the 2000s. She has been dubbed "an indie sensation" by Toronto Life Magazine; "the wunderkind of Canadian theatre" by CBC Radio; "irritatingly talented" by the now defunct Eye Weekly; and the "dark angel of Toronto theatre" by Toronto Star. The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and Now Magazine have all hailed Hannah as "Canada’s Hottest Young Playwright". She is best known for her plays East of Berlin, The Russian Play, and This Is War.
- Birthplace: Ottawa, Canada
Herman Voaden
Dec. at 88 (1903-1991)Herman Arthur Voaden, (19 January 1903 – 27 June 1991) was a Canadian playwright.- Birthplace: London, Canada
- Herménégilde Chiasson, ONB (born 7 April 1946) is a Canadian poet, playwright and visual artist of Acadian origin. Born in Saint-Simon, New Brunswick, he was the 29th Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick between 2003 and 2009. He is also currently a professor at Université de Moncton.
- Birthplace: New Brunswick, Canada
Ian Ross
Age: 56Ian Ross (born April 8, 1968 in McCreary, Manitoba) the son of Grace and Raymond Ross; is a Métis Canadian playwright. Ross earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in film and a minor in theatre from the University of Manitoba in 1992. He spent the first five years of his life in the Métis community of Kinosota, Manitoba before moving to Winnipeg, which he currently now calls his home. Ross has written for theatre, film, television and radio, and has been writing plays for a number of years but is perhaps best known as the creator of Farewel. FareWel is Ross’ first professional production, which later won him the 1997 Governor General's Award for English Drama, making Ross the first Métis to win the award. Ross is also the author of a number of plays which include: The Gap, Heart of a Distant Tribe, Bic Off!, Bereav'd of Light, An Illustrated History of the Anishinabe, and a children's play called, Baloney! Ross' plays have been produced by the Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Black Hole Theatre Company, and the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. Ross has written many segments for CBC, but is well known for his humorous segment on the radio as "Joe from Winnipeg". After "Joe from Winnipeg" aired, episodes were later published in two books, The Book of Joe and Joe from Winnipeg.FareWel, is fictional comedy about a group of First Nations that are forced to take control of their own lives, when their chief leaves to gamble in Las Vegas. As the Reserve is declaring self-government and the people are no longer receiving their welfare cheques, a new chief is elected by manipulation. The text was published by Scirocco 1997, and the play premiered at Prairie Theatre Exchange (PTE) in 1996, and was remounted at PTE in 1998. FareWel was later invited to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2001.The Gap is a play that portrays a love relationship between an Aboriginal man and a French woman set against the backdrop of a flood and premiered at Prairie Theatre Exchange in 2001.An Illustrated History of the Anishinabe, is a three-person play that started in Winnipeg for only eight days of school performances. The play uses a healthy amount of comedy to tell the story of First Nations history on the Prairies. Anishinabe is a word the prairie Ojibwa people used to describe themselves.- Birthplace: McCreary, Canada
- Ian Tamblyn (born December 2, 1947) is a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter and record producer, adventurer, and playwright.
- Birthplace: Fort William, Ontario, Thunder Bay, Canada
- James Timothy Hunt (born April 1, 1959) is an American-Canadian author and journalist. He has also written children's books under the pen name Tim Beiser.
- Birthplace: Lynwood, California
James Reaney
Dec. at 81 (1926-2008)James Crerar Reaney, (September 1, 1926 – June 11, 2008) was a Canadian poet, playwright, librettist, and professor, "whose works transform small-town Ontario life into the realm of dream and symbol." Reaney won Canada's highest literary award, the Governor General's Award, three times and received the Governor General's Award for Poetry or Drama for both his poetry and his drama.- Birthplace: Stratford, Canada
Jason Hall
Age: 47Jason Hall (born 1978) is a Canadian playwright. He was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. He attended Queen's University, King's College London, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Eyes Catch Fire, his first full-length play, won Canada's Herman Voaden Playwriting Competition in 2003. It was subsequently produced at the Finborough Theatre, London in 2004 and was selected as a Time Out Critics' Choice.GBS, his second play, was first produced at Toronto's Factory Theatre in 2004 as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival. Its second production was in 2006 at Theatre 503, London. GBS' third production will take place between March 23 and April 10, 2010 at New York's off-Broadway Kirk Theatre on Theatre Row.Stand Sentry, a short film adapted from his play of the same name, premiered at the Strasbourg International Film Festival on August 31, 2009.In 2005, he was selected by the Royal Court Theatre Young Writers Programme to attend the World Interplay Festival in Australia. Later that year, he was chosen by the British Council's Visiting Arts programme to spend three months in residence at El Teatro Libre in Bogotá, Colombia.He currently resides in London, England, UK.- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
Jason Sherman
Age: 62Jason Sherman (born July 28, 1962 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter. After graduating from the creative writing program at York University in 1985, Sherman co-founded What Publishing with Kevin Connolly, which produced what, a literary magazine that he edited from 1985 to 1990. Before establishing himself as a dramatist, Sherman's journalistic works such as reviews, essays, and interviews appeared in various publications, including The Globe and Mail, Canadian Theatre Review and Theatrum. He edited two anthologies for Coach House Press, Canadian Brash (1991) and Solo (1993), and was playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre from 1992-99. Sherman's first professional productions were A Place Like Pamela (1991) and To Cry is Not So (1991), followed by The League of Nathans (1992, published in book form in 1996), which won a Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award (1993), and was nominated for the Governor General's Award for English language drama. Among his many other plays is Three in the Back, Two in the Head, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama (1995), and Reading Hebron, which had its most recent production at London's Orange Tree Theatre in March 2011. In the November 2007 issue of This Magazine, Sherman wrote an article explaining why he would no longer be writing stage plays. Since then, he has written extensively for television and radio, including the CBC Radio series Afghanada and the television series Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures and The Best Laid Plans.- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
Jean-Louis Roux
Dec. at 90 (1923-2013)Jean-Louis Roux, (May 18, 1923 – November 28, 2013) was a Canadian politician, entertainer and playwright who was briefly the 26th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec.- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
Jeff Green
Age: 68Jeffrey Stuart Green (born June 21, 1956) is a Canadian author, playwright, producer, and director, who has worked in a variety of media including radio, television, computer, DVD-based multimedia, and in live nightclub settings. His work has earned him critical acclaim and a number of awards. In addition to the work he has created, he was instrumental in the evolution of broadcast radio in the Ottawa market during the late 1970s and the 1980s — specifically, the Carleton University non-profit radio station CKCU-FM and the commercial album-oriented rock radio station CHEZ-FM. Currently, he is working as a multimedia consultant and produces and hosts a bi-weekly overnight radio show on CKCU called Big In Japan.- Birthplace: Halifax, Halifax Regional Municipality, Canada
- Joanna McClelland Glass (born 7 October 1936 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) is a playwright. She became an American citizen in 1962.
- Birthplace: Saskatoon, Canada
- John Newport Caird (born 22 September 1948) is an English stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and the Principal Guest Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm (Dramaten).
- Birthplace: Edmonton, Canada
John Krizanc
Age: 69John Krizanc (born 1956) is a Canadian playwright who established an international reputation with his non-linear work, Tamara. Its Toronto production (directed by Richard Rose) won him a Dora Mavor Moore Award in 1982.- Birthplace: Lethbridge, Canada
- John Mighton, OC (born October 2, 1957) is a Canadian mathematician, author, and playwright. He founded JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies) Math, a charitable organization that works to educate students in mathematics, in 2001. Mighton was born in Hamilton, Ontario on (1957-10-02)October 2, 1957 and lives in Toronto, Ontario with partner Pamela Sinha and daughter Chloe.
- Birthplace: Hamilton, Canada
John Murrell
Age: 79John Murrell, OC, AOE (born October 15, 1945) is an American-born Canadian playwright.- Birthplace: Texas, USA, Lubbock
Jonathan Lachlan-Stewart
Jonathan Lachlan Stewart is a Canadian actor and playwright. Stewart was born and educated in Edmonton, Alberta, and began writing plays in elementary school, when he was twelve years old. Some were performed at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. Later, he studied theatre at Studio 58, in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2004, he co-founded a theatre company, Surreal SoReal, with Vincent Forcier, which tours the country with original plays.Stewart's play writing credits include Little Room (nominated for two Edmonton Sterling Awards), Grumplestock's (co-written and published in the NextFest anthology), Twisted Thing (honorable mention, Larry Corse world-wide playwriting contest), Eleanor, and The City Green. He has been nominated for a Jessie Award for his acting in Vancouver theatre.Stewart also works as a voice actor with the Calgary-based Blue Water Studios, to voice Kamille Bidan in the English dub of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. He was also the voice of Kamille in most of the Gundam games that Kamille appeared in until the Dynasty Warriors Gundam series. Currently he is providing the voice of Miwa for the first season of the English adaptation of the Cardfight!! Vanguard.- Birthplace: Edmonton, Canada
Joseph Quesnel
Dec. at 62 (1746-1809)Joseph Quesnel (15 November 1746 – 2 or 3 July 1809) was a French Canadian composer, poet, and playwright. Among his works were two operas, Colas et Colinette and Lucas et Cécile; the former is considered to be the first Canadian opera.- Birthplace: Saint-Malo, France
- Judith Clare Thompson, OC F.R.S. (born September 20, 1954) is a Canadian playwright who lives in Toronto, Ontario. She has twice been awarded the Governor General's Award for drama, and is the recipient of many other awards including the Order of Canada, the Walter Carsen Performing Arts Award, the Toronto Arts Award, The Epilepsy Ontario Award, The B'nai B'rith Award, the Dora, the Chalmers, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award (a global competition for the best play written by a woman in the English Language) and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, both for Palace of the End, which premiered at Canadian Stage, and has been produced all over the world in many languages. She has received honorary doctorates from Thorneloe University and, in Nov. 2016, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
- Karim Alrawi is a writer born in Alexandria, Egypt. His family emigrated to England then to Canada. Alrawi graduated from University College London and the University of Manchester, England. He gained an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and was an International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa. In the UK, after his first full length stage play Migrations won the prestigious John Whiting Award he became Literary Manager of the Theatre Royal Stratford East and later Resident Writer at the Royal Court Theatre in Central London. He moved to Egypt where he taught in the theatre department of the American University in Cairo. In Egypt his plays were banned by the state censor. He was arrested and detained for interrogation by Egyptian State Security about his writings and for his work with the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights. As a Fulbright International Scholar he moved to the United States. He later took positions as Writer in Residence at Meadow Brook Theatre in Michigan and Editor in Chief of ARABICA magazine, the leading nationally distributed Arab-American publication with a certified readership of over 100,000 readers.
- Birthplace: Alexandria, Egypt
Kim Morrissey
Age: 70Janice Dales aka Kim Morrissey is a Canadian poet and playwright who lives in London, England. Many of her works examine the role of women in nineteenth century culture, re-imagining the lives of historical figures. She is also part of the Comedy Collective UK (which included Colin Shelbourn, John Random, Ivan Shakespeare, Lee Barnett, Claire Storey, Jasmine Birtles, Robert Priest). The working drafts of Morrissey's play Mrs Ruskin, about Effie Gray, have been published on the web. She has written for various radio dramas and documentaries, as well as the 1980s radio show Week Ending.Morissey's Poems for Men who Dream of Lolita purport to be written by Lolita herself, reflecting on the events in the story, a sort of diary in poetry form. Morrissey portrays Lolita as an innocent, wounded soul. In speaking of her work in Lolita Unclothed, a documentary by Camille Paglia, she has complained that in the novel Lolita has "no voice". The poems were set to music at the New Music Festival in Winnipeg in 1993 (composer: Sid Rabinovitch). Five poems from the book were selected for Mythic Women/Real Women (edited by Lizbeth Goodman), Faber & Faber's Women & Gender university textbook. Morrisey also dealt with the theme of ephebophilia in her stage play about Freud's Dora case.- Birthplace: Canada
Lance Woolaver
Age: 77Lance Gerard Woolaver (born 1948) is an award-winning Canadian author, poet, playwright, lyricist, and director. His best-known works include books, film and biographical plays about Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, including Maud Lewis The Heart on the Door, and Maud Lewis - World Without Shadows. His plays include one about international singer Portia White, who was born in Nova Scotia: Portia White - First You Dream.- Birthplace: Nova Scotia, Canada
Leanna Brodie
Age: 58Leanna Brodie is a Canadian actor and playwright.- Birthplace: Winnipeg, Canada
Len Peterson
Dec. at 90 (1917-2008)Leonard Byron Peterson (15 March 1917 – 28 February 2008) was a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and novelist. His career started in 1939 when he sold a script to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has written more than a thousand different dramatic works for stage, screen, television, and radio. One of his earliest successes was the radio play They're All Afraid (1944), which was written for the CBC program Stage '44. The play received much criticism for depicting life in Canada negatively at a time when it was thought that boosting wartime morale was more appropriate. They're All Afraid went on to win the award for best drama in a broadcasting festival in Ohio. It was later adapted by Peterson for the stage.- Linda Pauline Griffiths (7 October 1953 – 21 September 2014) was a Canadian actress and playwright best known for writing and starring in the one woman play Maggie and Pierre, in which she portrayed both Pierre Trudeau and his then-estranged wife, Margaret. Among her cinematic work, she is best known for her acclaimed, starring role in Lianna.
- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
Louis-Honoré Fréchette
Dec. at 68 (1839-1908)Louis-Honoré Fréchette, (November 16, 1839 – May 31, 1908), was a Canadian poet, politician, playwright, and short story writer. For his prose, he would be the first Quebecois to receive the Prix Montyon from the Académie française, as well as the first Canadian to receive any honor of this kind from a European nation.- Birthplace: Lévis, Canada
- Marlene Nourbese Philip (born 3 February 1947), usually credited as M. NourbeSe Philip, is a Canadian poet, novelist, playwright, essayist and short story writer.
- Birthplace: Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago
M. T. Kelly
Age: 78Milton Terrence Kelly (born November 30, 1946) is a Canadian novelist, poet and playwright. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Kelly attended Parkdale Collegiate Institute, York University and the University of Toronto. His first novel, I Do Remember The Fall (1977), was nominated for the Books in Canada First Novel Award. This book was followed by two novels from Black Moss Press followed: The More Loving One and The Ruined Season. Kelly's third novel A Dream Like Mine (1987) won the Governor General's Award for fiction and was made into the movie Clearcut. A book of poetry, Country You Can't Walk In, won the first Toronto Arts Council Award. Two other novels with Stoddart followed, Out of the Whirlwind and Save Me Joe Louis, as well as a book of short stories, All that Wild Wounding. Among other collections M.T. Kelly's work was included in The Thinking Heart: Best Canadian Essays (1991) and The Saturday Night Traveller. His play The Green Dolphin was performed at Theatre Passe Muraille. A frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail, M.T. Kelly also worked as a reporter for the Moose Jaw Times-Herald. In 2000, when his wife, Madam Justice Lynn King was diagnosed with breast cancer, and his publisher of 30 years, General Publishing, went bankrupt, M.T. Kelly stopped publishing. Another contributing factor was the death of his friend, colleague, and sometime editor, author Carole Corbeil. Kelly remained silent after his wife's death in March 2005, but Exile Editions then re-printed A Dream Like Mine in its Canadian Classics series with an introduction by native writer Daniel David Moses. Along with the reprinting of A Dream Like Mine Exile published a new book, Downriver, which contained poetry, a memoir, and a short story about the people in the memoir. M.T. Kelly's papers are in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library archives at the University of Toronto.- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Maggie MacDonald (born 1979) is a writer, playwright, and musician who lives in Toronto, Ontario.
- Marie Clements (born January 10, 1962) is a Canadian Métis playwright, performer, director, producer and screenwriter. Marie was founding artistic director of urban ink productions, and is currently co-artistic director of red diva projects, and director of her new film company Working Pajama Lab Entertainment. Clements lives on Galiano Island, British Columbia. As a writer Marie has worked in a variety of mediums including theatre, performance, film, multi-media, radio, and television.
- Birthplace: Vancouver, Canada
Mark Leiren-Young
Age: 62Mark Leiren-Young (born 1962) is a Canadian playwright, author, journalist, screenwriter, filmmaker and performer. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.- Birthplace: Vancouver, Canada
Matthew MacFadzean
Age: 53Matthew MacFadzean (born 1972 in North York, Ontario) is a Canadian actor and playwright. As an actor, he has worked at theatres across Canada, including both the Shaw and Stratford Shakespeare festivals. He has written and produced eight plays, the most notable works including richardthesecond, and the multi-Dora award winning The Mill. He attended McGill University, the National Theatre School of Canada, and studied television writing at the Canadian Film Centre. He currently acts and writes for television. He is the winner of many awards including the prestigious Fox Foundation Scholarship. MacFadzean is the youngest of three children.- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
Maureen Hunter
Age: 77Maureen Hunter (born 1948) is a Canadian playwright who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hunter was born in Indian Head, Saskatchewan and graduated from the University of Saskatchewan. Her plays have been performed in theatres across Canada, as well as in the U.S. and Britain. Transit of Venus was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and recorded by the BBC. An opera version of Transit of Venus premiered at Manitoba Opera in 2007. Her plays have been published by Scirocco Drama and Nuage Editions and are available through good bookstores and on Amazon. She is a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada.- Birthplace: Indian Head, Canada
Merrill Denison
Dec. at 81 (1893-1975)Merrill Denison (23 June 1893 — 13 June 1975) was a Canadian playwright. He created many dramas which were broadcast during the early days of radio, and was the art director of Hart House Theatre, Toronto, Ontario.- Birthplace: Canada
Michael Healey
Michael Healey is a Canadian playwright and actor. He graduated from the acting programme at Toronto's Ryerson Theatre School in 1985. His acting credits include the plays of Jason Sherman (The League of Nathans, Reading Hebron and Three in the Back, Two in the Head) and George F. Walker (The End of Civilization, Better Living).Michael Mackenzie
Age: 74Mike or Michael McKenzie or MacKenzie may refer to: Michael MacKenzie (rugby player) (born 1983), Namibian rugby union prop Michael Mackenzie (filmmaker), Canadian theatre director, film director, screenwriter, and dramaturge Mike MacKenzie (politician) (born 1958), Scottish National Party Politician Michael McKenzie (swimmer) (born 1967), Australian long-distance freestyle swimmer Mike "Gunface" McKenzie (born 1980) American musician with The Red Chord Mike McKenzie (American football) (born 1976), American football cornerback Mike McKenzie (ice hockey) (born 1986), Canadian professional ice hockey player Michael "Macca" MacKenzie, fictional character on Australian soap opera Home and Away Michael McKenzie (artist) (born 1953), American author and artist Mike McKenzie (jazz musician) (1922-1999), Guyanese jazz musician Michael MacKenzie (cricketer) (born 1974), New Zealand cricketer- Michael Lewis MacLennan (born June 5, 1968) is a Canadian playwright, television writer and television producer, best known as a writer and producer of television series such as Queer as Folk and Bomb Girls. As a playwright he is a two-time nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama, and the only playwright to win the Herman Voaden Playwriting Competition twice.
- Birthplace: Vancouver, Canada
Michael Redhill
Age: 58Michael Redhill (born 12 June 1966) is an American-born Canadian poet, playwright and novelist. He also writes under the pseudonym Inger Ash Wolfe.- Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Michel Marc Bouchard
Age: 67Michel Marc Bouchard, (born February 2, 1958) is a Canadian playwright. He has received the Prix Journal de Montreal, Prix du Cercle des critiques de l'Outaouais, the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, and nine Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards for the Vancouver productions of Lilies and The Orphan Muses.- Birthplace: Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, Quebec, Canada
Michel Tremblay
Age: 82Michel Tremblay, CQ (born 25 June 1942) is a French Canadian novelist and playwright. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, where he grew up in the French-speaking neighbourhood of Plateau Mont-Royal; at the time of his birth a neighbourhood with a working-class character and joual dialect - something that would heavily influence his work. Tremblay's first professionally produced play, Les Belles-Sœurs, was written in 1965 and premiered at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert on August 28, 1968. It transformed the old guard of Canadian theatre and introduced joual to the mainstream. It stirred up controversy by portraying the lives of working class women and attacking the strait-laced, deeply religious society of mid-20th century Quebec.- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
- Morley Edward Callaghan, (February 22, 1903 – August 25, 1990) was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and TV and radio personality.
- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Morris Stephen Panych (born 30 June 1952) is a Canadian playwright, director and actor.
- Birthplace: Canada, Calgary
- Effectively cast as both amiable heroes and imposing figures of evil, Italian-born actor Nick Mancuso established himself as a new and valuable performer on stage in productions put on by the Stratford Festival and the Toronto Free Theater. He made his Hollywood motion picture debut in the horror outing "Nightwing" (1979), which proved to be a failure, but Mancuso quickly bounced back with one of his finest performances in "Ticket to Heaven" (1981) as a downtrodden man seduced into joining a cult. From that point onward, he alternated between working in the United States and Canada, including the fondly remembered "Stingray" (NBC, 1985) and its short-lived series offshoot, and such major studio pictures as "Under Siege" (1992) and "Rapid Fire" (1992). Moving back and forth from lead roles to more character-oriented assignments, Mancuso's dark good looks and multilingual abilities also made him the perfect choice to play different ethnicities. Although he was rarely at a loss for employment, Mancuso launched a new career path later in life as an enthusiastic advocate for healthy life choices and homeopathic alternatives to conventional medication. While never a bona fide star by Hollywood standards, Mancuso commanded a great deal respect amongst both his peers and the public for an impressively lengthy and varied acting history in three mediums.
- Birthplace: Mammola, Calabria, Italy
Nicolas Billon
Age: 46Nicolas Billon (born March 22, 1978) is a Canadian writer. He is best known for his plays The Elephant Song, Iceland, and Butcher.- Birthplace: Ottawa, Canada
Padma Viswanathan
Age: 57Padma Viswanathan (born 1968 Nelson, British Columbia) is a Canadian playwright and fiction writer.- Birthplace: Nelson, Canada
Pan Bouyoucas
Age: 78Pan Bouyoucas (born 16 August 1946 in Lebanon) is a Greek-Canadian author, playwright and translator.- Birthplace: Lebanon
Paul Nicholas Mason
Age: 67Paul Nicholas Mason (born 1958) is an English-born Canadian novelist, playwright, and actor. Mason has published two plays, The Discipline Committee and Circles of Grace (1995), which have been produced in Canada, Ireland and the United States. His play Sister Camille's Kaleidoscopic Cabaret won the Christians in Theatre Arts Full Length Play award in 1996, and premiered in Michigan in 1998. Mason's first novel, Battered Soles, was published by Turnstone Press in 2005. The novel celebrates a fictional pilgrimage from Peterborough, Ontario, to the small village of Lakefield, where there is, Mason asserts, a statue of a blue-skinned Jesus with healing powers in the basement of St. John's Anglican Church. "Mason blends fiction with reality as he writes about taking this fictional pilgrimage...one weekend in July, 2003. By the time he takes this journey, it has become a mainstay tourist attraction (Swimmer 2006)." In July 2005 the real-world rector of St. John's posted a notice advising confused tourists that there was no such statue in the basement of the church, but that "anyone wishing an encounter with the living Christ" should join the congregation at Sunday services. The tone of the novel is comic: "More comedy than satire, it resounds of Horace rather than of Juvenal; Chaucer rather than Swift; Leacock rather than Richler (Gallagher 2005)"—but there are some moments of genuine pathos. It was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2005. Mason's second novel, The Red Dress, was published by Turnstone in 2008. The story of a seventeen-year-old young man growing up poor and confused in rural Ontario, it is significantly darker than Battered Soles, but the ending is cautiously hopeful. The Red Dress is set in a village called Greenfield, but the landmarks and features of the community suggest that Mason has blended Lakefield, Ontario with Barriefield, just outside the city of Kingston. The Red Dress was long-listed for the 2009 ReLit award. Mason's third novel, The Night Drummer, was published by Vancouver's Now or Never in January 2015. It is the story of two teenage friends—white middle-class Peter Ellis, and Otis James, a native boy adopted by an evangelical Christian couple old enough to be his grandparents. Peter and Otis grow up in small town Ontario in the 1970s, and the novel follows them through their high school years. "As Ellis sleeplessly anticipates his high school’s looming 25-year reunion, his recollections balance moments of encroaching darkness with plenty of joyous light," says Publishers Weekly. "Ellis’s memories of first loves and jobs and an endearingly oddball assortment of friends, including Otis, a preternaturally wise and kind Ojibwe boy adopted by devout Caucasian parents, give this portrait a welcome sweetness that draws attention to the innocence, sheer possibility, and blithe lightheartedness of youth." A later review in the Autumn 2017 issue of The Link reads, "The 1970s were a vibrant time of progressive change, and with its evocation of growing up in that wonderful era The Night Drummer makes for fascinating and entertaining reading. Highly recommended." The book is endorsed by former American poet laureate Billy Collins, the CBC's national correspondent Duncan McCue, and the poet Kimmy Beach. Mason's work is characterized by what one reviewer calls its "fragile optimism" (Gallagher 2005). His plays and novels are informed by Christian belief, but are sometimes mildly profane. Now or Never published Mason's first children's book, A Pug Called Poppy, in the fall of 2017. Mason began a new career in 2015 as a voice-, television- and film-actor. He has roles in the feature films Super Detention, A Witches' Ball, Santa's Castle, Christmas with a Prince, A Christmas in Paris, Hometown Holiday, A Dog in Paris, The Customer, Behanding, The Mechanical Boy, Bloodslinger, Darts and Speak Your Mind. He also has a small principal role in the CBS television series Blood & Treasure.- Birthplace: London, United Kingdom
- Paul Lewis Quarrington (July 22, 1953 – January 21, 2010) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, musician and educator.
- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Pauline Michel (born 1944 in Asbestos, Quebec) is a Canadian novelist, poet, playwright, songwriter and screenwriter. Michel has a Bachelor of Education from the Université de Sherbrooke as well a teaching certificate from École normale Marguerite Bourgeois and Université Laval.Her work has appeared on Radio-Canada, Télé-Métropole, TV Ontario and Télé-Québec.In 2004, Michel was appointed the second ever Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate, succeeding George Bowering. She served as Poet Laureate until November 16, 2006.
- Birthplace: Asbestos, Canada
- Peter Wildeblood (19 May 1923 – 14 November 1999) was an Anglo-Canadian journalist, novelist, playwright and gay rights campaigner. He was one of the first men in the UK to publicly declare his homosexuality.
- Birthplace: Alassio, Italy
- Raymond Lévesque is an actor, singer-songwriter, poet, novelist and playwright.
- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
Réjean Ducharme
Age: 83Réjean Ducharme (August 12, 1941 – August 21, 2017) was a Canadian novelist and playwright who resided in Montreal. He was known for his reclusive personality and has not appeared at any public functions since his first successful book was published in 1966. A common theme of his early work is the rejection of the adult world by children. L'Avalée des avalés (The Swallower Swallowed), Ducharme's first novel, was short-listed for the 1966 Prix Goncourt even though the author was only 24 years old and unknown. That same year, the book won the 1966 Governor General's Award for Poetry or Drama (Poésie et théâtre). L'Avalée des avalés later won the 2005 French version of Canada Reads, where it was defended by actress Sophie Cadieux. In the 1992 movie Léolo, the main character spends much of his time reading and thinking about L'Avalée des avalés. In 2017, Ducharme died of natural cause at age 76 in Montreal.- Birthplace: Saint-Félix-de-Valois, Quebec, Canada
Richard Epp
Age: 77Richard Epp may refer to: Richard Epp (physicist), Canadian physicist Richard Epp (actor), Canadian playwright and actor- Birthplace: Canada
Richard Greenblatt
Age: 72See Richard Greenblatt (disambiguation) for other people of the same name.Richard Greenblatt (born 1953 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian playwright who currently lives in Toronto. He is best known for 2 Pianos, 4 Hands, which he wrote and performed with Ted Dykstra. Greenblatt was born in Montreal in 1953 to a secular Jewish family. His parents were active Communists until 1956, when they left the party after Khrushchev's Secret Speech. Greenblatt attended Dawson College. He later trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In 1975 he returned to Canada and began his theatrical career. He is the brother of Lewis Furey, musician, actor & director.- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
Rick Miller
Rick Miller is a Canadian director, actor, comedian, musician and playwright, currently living in Toronto. He has two architecture degrees from McGill University in Montreal, and has performed in 5 languages on 5 continents. Although primarily known as a solo theatre creator and performer, Miller is also known for hosting the television series Just for Laughs and for performing a version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" during which he impersonates "twenty five of the most annoying voices in the music industry". His solo show BOOM was the most presented play in Canada in 2015-16, and will be playing in Europe and the United States in 2019-20. The GenX sequel to BOOM - BOOM X - premiered in January 2019 and is now on tour across Canada.- Birthplace: Canada
Rick Salutin
Age: 82Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright, journalist, and critic and has been writing for more than forty years. Until October 1, 2010, he wrote a regular column in the Globe and Mail; on February 11, 2011, he began a weekly column in the Toronto Star. He currently teaches a half course on Canadian media and culture in University College at the University of Toronto. He is a contributing editor of This Magazine. He got his Bachelor of Arts degree in Near Eastern and Jewish Studies at Brandeis University and got his Master of Arts degree in religion at Columbia University. He also studied philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He was once a trade union organizer in Toronto and participated in the Artistic Woodwork strike. Rick Salutin is very interested in communication and praises Harold Innis, an economist who taught at the University of Toronto, and creator of the Staples Thesis, for his outlook in communications. Salutin has a child with the fifth estate journalist Theresa Burke, whom he has cited as the model for the characters Amy Bert and Antia in The Womanizer.- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Robert Lepage, (born December 12, 1957) is a Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director.
- Birthplace: Canada, Quebec City
Robert Merritt
Dec. at 63 (1936-1999)Robert Gray Merritt (1936 – June 5, 1999) was a Nova Scotia playwright, film critic, and educator. Merritt was born in Yonkers, NY, the son of John Gray and Mildred (Rust) Merritt. He was a teacher in Houston and Oklahoma in the 1960s. From the 1970s through the 1990s, Merritt was a professor of theatre, specializing in playwriting and film, at Dalhousie University's Department of Theatre. He was well known for challenging the conventions of mainstream theatre and encouraging his many students to find their own artistic voices. Merritt was also a film critic for CBC Radio's morning program, Information Morning. At times he roused strong listener reaction with his attacks on mainstream movies and his promotion of independent film. Describing Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman's Ishtar, Merritt said that it was a pity that the film was not named "Tishtar." because then "if you spelled it backwards, it would almost write its own review." Merritt died in 1999 of complications arising from congestive heart failure and cancer, five years after taking early retirement. The annual Robert Merritt Awards, which recognize outstanding achievement in professional theatre in Nova Scotia, are named in his honour. The Merritts celebrate accomplishment in acting, directing, playwrighting, design, technical theatre, and production.- William Robertson Davies, (28 August 1913 – 2 December 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", an unfashionable term Davies gladly accepted for himself. Davies was the founding Master of Massey College, a graduate residential college associated with the University of Toronto.
- Birthplace: Thamesville, Canada
Sandra Dempsey
Sandra Dempsey (born 1956) is a Canadian playwright. Her play D'Arcy was a semi-finalist for Theatre Ontario's Playwrights Showcase in 1980. Her other plays include Armagideon, Flying To Glory, Enigma, Wings To Victory, Barbie & Ken, Casualties, Clap Trap, Legacy, Orders, Rosa's Lament, Pierre La, Air Apparent, Fat Cans, Pee Pipe, Officer Drag, Inhumanitarianism, and Wings and a Prayer.- A compact, curly-haired character player with bushy eyebrows over large brown eyes and malleable looks, Saul Rubinek has excelled in playing nebbishy professionals. Born in a displaced persons camp after WWII to Polish Holocaust survivors, he and his family emigrated to Canada when he was a mere eight months. As a child, Rubinek was enrolled in theater classes and by age 10 had made his professional acting debut on Canadian radio. While still in grade school, he regularly performed at the Ottawa Little Theatre, often playing both male and female children. Deciding early on to pursue a career as an actor (his father had been a performer in Yiddish theater in pre-war Europe), Rubinek dropped out of school at 16. Four years later, he was gainfully employed at his craft at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and later was a founding member of both the Toronto Free Theatre and the Theatre Passe Muraille.
- Birthplace: Föhrenwald, Wolfratshausen, Germany
- Sharon Pollock, (born 19 April 1936 in Fredericton, New Brunswick) is a Canadian playwright, actor, director, who lives in Calgary, Alberta. She has been Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary (1984), Theatre New Brunswick (1988–1990) and Performance Kitchen & The Garry Theatre, the latter which she herself founded in 1992. In 2007, she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Pollock is one of Canada's most notable playwrights, and is a major part of the development of what is known today as Canadian Theatre.
- Birthplace: Fredericton, Canada
- Schuyler Lee (Sky) Gilbert Jr. (born December 20, 1952) is a Canadian writer, actor, academic and drag performer. Born in Norwich, Connecticut, he studied theatre at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and at the University of Toronto, before becoming the co-founder and artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times, a Toronto theatre company dedicated to LGBT drama. His drag name is Jane. Gilbert also teaches a course on playwrighting at the University of Guelph. Although primarily a playwright, Gilbert has also published novels, poetry and an autobiography. His works deal with issues of gender and sexuality. Many of Gilbert's works are produced at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. He has also been a regular columnist for Toronto's eye weekly. Gilbert holds the University Chair in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Gilbert is artistic director of The Hammertheatre Company, founded in January 2007, a company devoted to theatre research in Hamilton, Ontario. The theatre is at the old Ancient Order of Foresters building in the James Street North neighbourhood, a center of Hamilton's art scene.Gilbert has been living in Hamilton since 2004 with his partner, artist Ian Jarvis.
- Birthplace: Norwich, Connecticut
- Sonja Skarstedt (October 2, 1960 – July 31, 2009) was a Canadian poet, short story, playwright writer, painter and illustrator. Born in Montreal, Quebec, she was the founder and former editor of the literary magazine Zymergy, 1987-1991, and founder of Empyreal Press, 1990. She graduated from McGill University with a BA in English Literature in 1982. She was married to the artist and comic book illustrator Geof Isherwood. In 2008, Skarstedt began the first of over thirty short film productions on YouTube's Skarwood Channel. Skarstedt died July 31, 2009 at the age of 48, 26 months after diagnosis and treatment for ovarian cancer.
- Birthplace: Montreal, Canada
- Stephen Massicotte (born April 18, 1969 in Trenton, Ontario) is a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and actor from Calgary, Alberta.
- Birthplace: Quinte West, Trenton, Canada
Stewart Lemoine
Stewart Lemoine is a Canadian playwright, director, and producer. Lemoine is based in Edmonton, Alberta and from 1982-2007 was the Artistic Director of Teatro la Quindicina. In 2008 he became Teatro's resident playwright, working on his own original comedies and mentoring the troupe's new writers at Old Strathcona's Varscona Theatre. Lemoine has written over sixty plays in the course of his career. He is the winner of five Sterling Awards for The Glittering Heart (1990), The Book of Tobit (1993), The Noon Witch (1995), Pith (1998) and At the Zenith of the Empire (2006). He received a Dora Mavor Moore Award for The Vile Governess and Other Psychodramas (1986). He won the New York International Fringe Festival’s Award for Overall Excellence in Playwriting for the remount of Pith! in 2004. In 2008, Lemoine was honoured with the Tommy Banks Performing Arts Award, and in 2013 with the Diamond Jubilee Medal.Lemoine served as the director for the live improvised soap opera Die-Nasty for two seasons (1996-97, 1997-98), and produced the show for several years after that. Since 1999, he has acted as producer of Oh Susanna!, the Varscona Theatre's monthly variety show. He is currently working on his show entitled "The Addlepated Nixie" with the graduating class of performance arts at Grant MacEwan Community College in Edmonton Alberta.- Birthplace: Winnipeg, Canada
- Thomas "Thom" Fitzgerald (born July 8, 1968) is an American-Canadian film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright and producer.
- Birthplace: USA, New York, New Rochelle
- Timothy Irving Frederick Findley, (October 30, 1930 – June 20, 2002) was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.
- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
Tomson Highway
Age: 73Tomson Highway, CM (born 6 December 1951) is an Indigenous Canadian playwright, novelist, and children's author. He is best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won him the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.Highway has also published a novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), which is based on the events that led to his brother René Highway’s death of AIDS. He also has the distinction of being the librettist of the first Cree language opera, The Journey or Pimooteewin.- Birthplace: Manitoba, Canada
Trey Anthony
Age: 51Trey Anthony (born 1983) is a playwright, actor, and producer, best known for her award-winning play and television series Da Kink in My Hair. As a producer, she worked for the Women's Television Network and the Urban Women's Comedy Festival. She founded Trey Anthony Studios, a television and theater production company dedicated to producing new works of theater.- Birthplace: England
Vern Thiessen
Age: 61Vern Thiessen (born c. 1964) is a Canadian playwright. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Thiessen studied at the University of Winnipeg and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. He later attended the University of Alberta, where he obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree. Thiessen previously lived in Edmonton, Alberta and was formerly a drama instructor at the University of Alberta. He is a past president of both the Playwrights Guild of Canada and the Writers' Guild of Alberta. Thiessen is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award for English-language drama (Einstein's Gift), the Carol Bolt Award for Best Play (Vimy) and the Sterling Award for Outstanding New Play (Apple). He has also received the City of Edmonton Arts Achievement Award and the Alumni Award of Excellence from the University of Alberta. He has been nominated several times for other awards including the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Lenin's Embalmers. Thiessen's work has been translated into several languages including German, French, Polish and Hebrew. His plays are performed regularly in Canada, the United States, the UK and Europe. He has also been produced in Australia and Asia. Shakespeare's Will has been produced twice at Canada's Stratford Festival. Lenin's Embalmers, A More Perfect Union and Einstein's Gift have been produced Off-Broadway. Thiessen has served as playwright in residence at the Citadel Theatre and Workshop West Theatre in Edmonton. He is currently an associate artist at Epic Theatre Ensemble. He is also project associate for the New Play Frontiers program at People's Light at Theatre in Malvern, PA. Thiessen is currently at work on several commissions for the Ensemble Studio Theatre (New York), Touchstone Theatre/Patrick Street (Vancouver), Soulpepper Theatre Company (Toronto) and Epic Theatre Ensemble (New York.) His plays are published by Playwrights Canada Press. From 2007 until 2014 he lived in New York City. He is married to novelist Susie Moloney. Vern returned to Edmonton to serve as the Artistic Director of Work Shop West Theatre in 2014.In 2014 he won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play for his theatrical adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel Of Human Bondage.- Birthplace: Winnipeg, Canada
- Wajdi Mouawad, OC, (born 1968) is a Lebanese-Canadian writer, actor, and director. He is known in Canadian and French theatre for his politically engaged, moralistic theatre. It often revolves around family trauma, war, the betrayal of youth, and for recurring stylistic tropes, such as having his actors shout all their lines. Since April 2016, Mouawad is the director of the Théâtre national de la Colline in Paris.
- Birthplace: Beirut, Lebanon
