Billy Merasty | |
---|---|
Born | 1960 (age 63–64) Brochet, Manitoba, Canada |
Education | Centre for Indigenous Theatre |
Relatives | Tomson Highway (cousin) René Highway (cousin) |
Billy Merasty (born 1960) is an Aboriginal Canadian actor and writer of Cree descent.
Merasty was born in Brochet, Manitoba, Canada. He is the ninth of fourteen siblings born to Viola and Pierre Merasty, and a grandson of Joe Highway, a famous caribou hunter and champion dogsled racer; [1] and related to playwright Tomson Highway and dancer, choreographer, actor, and director René Highway. [2]
Merasty moved to Toronto at the age of 18 in search of René Highway, who was then working for the Toronto Dance Theatre. [3] At the age of 23, he launched his acting career after graduating from the Centre for Indigenous Theatre for aspiring First Nations artists. [4] He then worked for the Native Earth Performing Arts for a long period. [4]
Merasty has worked extensively on the stage and films as an actor and has written one play, Fireweed, produced in 1992. His second play, Godly's Divinia, is in development. [5]
In 2010, Merasty received the Order of Manitoba (Order of the Buffalo Hunt) in recognition for his many years as an Aboriginal role model from Manitoba. [6]
His stage credits include appearances in Tomson Highway's The Sage, The Dancer and the Fool, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing and The Rez Sisters , Daniel David Moses' The Indian Medicine Show, Lanford Wilson's Rain Dance, Marie Clements' Copper Thunderbird, Kevin Loring's Where the Blood Mixes, Steven Cole Hughes' Ghost Dance and David S. Craig's The Neverending Story.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, he performed the role of Gloucester in an all-aboriginal production of William Shakespeare's King Lear at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, alongside a cast that also included August Schellenberg as Lear, Tantoo Cardinal as Regan, Jani Lauzon in a dual role as Cordelia and the Fool, and Craig Lauzon as Kent. [7]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1989 | Justice Denied | Donald Marshall Jr. | |
1990 | The Shaman's Source | Mathew Hare | |
1994 | Exotica | Man at Opera | |
1995 | The Confessional | Moose | |
1995 | Pocahontas: The Legend | Kocoum | |
1998 | Honey Moccasin | Zachary John | |
2004 | Battle of the Brave | Owashak | |
2005 | The Big White | Cam | |
2005 | The New World | Kiskiak | |
2010 | Casino Jack | Bartender | |
2018 | Falls Around Her | Draven | |
2019 | The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw | William Bearclaw | |
2019 | It Chapter Two | Shokopiwah Man | |
2022 | Stellar | Auntie 1 | |
2023 | Café Daughter | ||
2024 | Aberdeen | Alfred |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1989 | Red Earth, White Earth | Tom Redfox | Television film |
1991 | Counterstrike | Hawk | Episode: "Native Warriors" |
1992 | The Broken Cord | Frank Cree | Television film |
1993 | Kung Fu: The Legend Continues | William Two-Feathers | Episode: "Shaman" |
1993 | X-Rated | Nathan Jones | Television film |
1993–1994 | The Red Green Show | Joshua Two Feathers | 4 episodes |
1994–1995 | Liberty Street | Nathan Jones | 26 episodes |
1995 | Tales of the Wild | Mawaki | Episode: "Les légendes du Grand Nord" |
1999 | War of 1812 | John Norton | 4 episodes |
2000 | The Virginian | Lee Talltrees | Television film |
2002 | Relic Hunter | Inuit Hunter | Episode: "Under the Ice" |
2003 | An American in Canada | Apak | Episode: "True North Strong and Almost Free" |
2004 | Wonderfalls | Jerry | Episode: "Totem Mole" |
2005 | This Is Wonderland | Brian Perot | Episode #2.8 |
2005 | Into the West | Yellow Bird | Episode: "Ghost Dance" |
2006 | Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis | John Cree | 4 episodes |
2007 | Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | Young Man Afraid | Television film |
2007 | Moose TV | Leonard Sky | 8 episodes |
2007 | Elijah | Elijah Harper | Television film |
2008 | Northern Lights | Jacob | |
2009 | American Experience | Warrior | Episode: "Tecumseh's Vision" |
2009, 2010 | Mixed Blessings | Mark | 2 episodes |
2011 | Moby Dick | Tashtego | |
2013 | Hard Rock Medical | Thompson Morris | |
2015 | Murdoch Mysteries | Elder | Episode: "All That Glitters" |
2016–2018 | Frontier | Kaagwa | 7 episodes |
2018 | Cardinal | Billy Ralph Northwind | Episode: "Northwind" |
2021 | The Secret History of: The Wild West | Poundmaker | Episode: "Peacemaker" |
2021 | Diggstown | Chief Thomas | Episode: "Jojo Carvery" |
2022 | Acting Good | Roger Laughingstick |
Tomson Highway is an Indigenous Canadian playwright, novelist, children's author and musician. He is best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.
Events from the year 1951 in Canada.
Events from the year 1989 in Canada.
Lorne Cardinal is a Gemini Award-winning Canadian stage, television and film actor, and accomplished stage and TV director. He is best known for portraying Sergeant Davis Quinton on the comedy series Corner Gas.
Adam Beach is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his roles as Victor Joseph in Smoke Signals; Frank Fencepost in Dance Me Outside; Tommy on Walker, Texas Ranger; Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt; U.S. Marine Corporal Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers; Private Ben Yahzee in Windtalkers; Dr. Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee; NYPD Detective Chester Lake in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; and Officer Jim Chee in the film adaptations of Skinwalkers, Coyote Waits and A Thief of Time. He starred in the Canadian 2012–2014 series Arctic Air and played Slipknot in the 2016 film Suicide Squad. He also performed as Squanto in Disney's historical drama film Squanto: A Warrior's Tale. Most recently he has starred in Hostiles (2017) as Black Hawk and the Netflix original film Juanita (2019) as Jess Gardiner and Edward Nappo in Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog.
Glen Gould is an Indigenous Canadian actor, director and producer of Miꞌkmaq and Italian descent. Between 2016 and 2020, he played the role of detective Jerry Commanda on the television series Cardinal.
René Highway was an Indigenous Canadian dancer and actor of Cree descent from Brochet, Manitoba. He was the brother of playwright Tomson Highway, with whom he frequently collaborated during their time at Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto, and the partner of actor and singer Micah Barnes.
Aboriginal Voices Radio Network was a Canadian radio network, which primarily broadcast music programming and other content of interest to aboriginal people. As of June 2015, the network operated stations in Toronto, Ontario, Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, and Vancouver, British Columbia. All of its stations were licensed as rebroadcasters of its flagship station, CKAV-FM in Toronto. The network's administrative office was located in Ohsweken, Ontario, on the Six Nations Indian reserve near Brantford. The stations' music programming consisted mainly of adult contemporary music, along with specialty programs focusing on aboriginal-oriented content.
The Centre for Indigenous Theatre is a non-profit theater educational institution located in Toronto, Ontario. It focuses on performance art from an Indigenous cultural foundation.
Rose Marie "Tantoo" Cardinal CM is a Canadian actress. Of Cree and Métis heritage, in 2009 she was made a member of the Order of Canada "for her contributions to the growth and development of Aboriginal performing arts in Canada, as a screen and stage actress, and as a founding member of the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company."
Craig Lauzon is a Canadian actor, writer, and comedian. He is best known for his time as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Farce. His main caricatures on the Farce include George Stroumboulopoulos, John Baird, Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper.
August Werner Schellenberg was a Canadian actor. He played Randolph in the first three installments of the Free Willy film series (1993–1997) as well as characters in Black Robe (1991), The New World (2005), and dozens of other films and television shows.
Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing is a play by Canadian writer Tomson Highway (Cree), which premiered in 1989 at Theatre Passe-Muraille in Toronto.
Jani Lauzon is a Canadian director, and multidisciplinary performer of Métis, French, and Finnish ancestry from East Kootenay, British Columbia. Lauzon resides in Toronto, Ontario.
The Rez Sisters is a two-act play by Canadian writer Tomson Highway (Cree), first performed on November 26, 1986, by Act IV Theatre Company and Native Earth Performing Arts.
Events from the year 2012 in Canada.
Kenneth T. Williams is a Cree playwright. He is from the George Gordon First Nation, Saskatchewan in Treaty 4 territory. Since 2017, Williams has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Drama at the University of Alberta.
The Wolf Award is an accolade conferred by a non-profit organization known as The Wolf Project to individuals, organizations, and communities in recognition of their efforts to reduce racial intolerance and to improve peace and understanding. The Wolf Award, which has also come to be known as the International Wolf Award, consists of a certificate of appreciation and a sculpture of a howling wolf, presented in ceremonial fashion to the recipient.