Guillermo Verdecchia (born December 7, 1962) is a Canadian theatre artist.
Verdecchia was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and came to Canada at the age of two. He was raised in Kitchener, Ontario. Verdecchia received an undergraduate degree in theatre at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, and a master's degree in English and Theatre Studies from the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.
Verdecchia received the 1993 Governor-General's Award for Drama for his play Fronteras Americanas. He is a four-time winner of the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, and a recipient of various other awards for acting as well as sundry film festival awards for Crucero/Crossroads, the short film, made with Ramiro Puerta, based on Fronteras Americanas.
His work engages questions of representation, political power, and cultural theory. Verdecchia is a sessional instructor at Algoma University and has been writer-in-residence at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Guelph, and at Ca' Foscari in Venice. In 2007 he was the 2007 Hayes-Jenkinson Memorial lecturer at Algoma University. He is also an instructor in the University of Toronto, and teaches various drama related courses.
He has also published a collection of short stories, Citizen Suarez in 1998.
Jane Urquhart, LL.D is a Canadian novelist and poet. She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories. As a novelist, Urquhart is well known for her evocative style which blends history with the present day. Her first novel, The Whirlpool, gained her international recognition when she became the first Canadian to win France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger. Her subsequent novels were even more successful. Away, published in 1993, won the Trillium Award and was a national bestseller. In 1997, her fourth novel, The Underpainter, won the Governor General's Literary Award.
Thomas King is an American-born Canadian writer and broadcast presenter who most often writes about First Nations.
Daniel David Moses was a Canadian poet and playwright.
Pauline Mills McGibbon served as the 22nd Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1974 to 1980. In addition to being the first woman to occupy that position, she was also the first woman to serve as a viceregal representative in Canadian history.
The Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) originated at the agricultural laboratories of the Toronto Normal School, and was officially founded in 1874 as an associate agricultural college of the University of Toronto. Since 1964, it has become affiliated with the University of Guelph, which operates campuses in Guelph and Ridgetown and formerly in Alfred and Kemptville, all in Ontario.
Djanet Sears is a Canadian playwright, nationally recognized for her work in African-Canadian theatre. Sears has many credits in writing and editing highly acclaimed dramas such as Afrika Solo, the first stage play to be written by a Canadian woman of African descent; its sequel Harlem Duet; and The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God. The complexities of intersecting identities of race and gender are central themes in her works, as well as inclusion of songs, rhythm, and choruses shaped from West African traditions. She is also passionate about "the preservation of Black theatre history," and involved in the creation of organizations like the Obsidian Theatre and AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival.
The Tarragon Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the main centers for contemporary playwriting in the country. Located near Casa Loma, the theatre was founded by Bill and Jane Glassco in 1970. Bill Glassco was the artistic director from 1971 to 1982. In 1982, Urjo Kareda took over as artistic director and remained in that role until his death in December 2001. Richard Rose was appointed artistic director in July 2002. Mike Payette assumed the role of artistic director in September 2021 upon Rose's retirement, with Lisa Li joining as Executive Director in June 2024.
Daniel MacIvor is a Canadian actor, playwright, theatre director, and film director. He is probably best known for his acting roles in independent films and the sitcom Twitch City.
The Governor General's Award for English-language drama honours excellence in Canadian English-language playwriting. The award was created in 1981 when the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry or drama was divided.
Judith Clare Thompson, OC is a Canadian playwright. 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 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 November 2016, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Schuyler Lee (Sky) Gilbert Jr. 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, where he holds a Professor position.
Dave Carley is a Canadian playwright who has written for stage, radio and television. His plays have had over 450 productions across Canada and the United States, and in other countries. They have won, or been nominated for, a number of awards, including the Governor General's Award, The Chalmers Award, The Dora Award, The Arthur Miller Award 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.
Daniel Brooks was a Canadian theatre director, actor, and playwright. He was well known in the Toronto theatre scene for his innovative productions and script-writing collaborations.
Soulpepper is a Toronto, Ontario-based theatre company founded to present classic plays. The following is a chronological list of the productions that it has staged since its inception.
George Thorneloe was a Canadian Anglican bishop at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.
Aaron Schwartz is a Canadian actor, director, photographer and copyright lawyer.
Colleen Louise Murphy is a Canadian screenwriter, film director and playwright. She is best known for works including her plays The December Man, which won the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2007 Governor General's Awards, and Beating Heart Cadaver, which was a shortlisted nominee for the same award at the 1999 Governor General's Awards, and the film Termini Station, for which she garnered a Genie Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 11th Genie Awards.
Carlo Guillermo Proto is a Chilean-Canadian director who was raised in both Quillota, Chile and Mississauga, Ontario. His work focuses on the unique interplay between identity and human experience in relation to issues of geography, ethnicity, and perceived disabilities.
Karl Jirgens is a writer, editor and professor emeritus at the University of Windsor, Ontario. He was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, and attended University of Toronto for his BA, Ontario College of Art where he completed 3 years towards a BFA, and York University for his MA and PhD in 1990. He has taught at the University of Toronto, York University, Guelph University, Humber College, Laurentian University (Algoma), and was the former head of the English Department at the University of Windsor (2004-2009).
Marcus Youssef is a Canadian playwright. He is most noted for the play Winners and Losers, a collaboration with James Long which was shortlisted for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Original Play, General Theatre in 2014, and the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2015 Governor General's Awards.