Janet Munsil is a Canadian playwright based in Victoria, British Columbia. [1] She is most noted for her plays That Elusive Spark and Be Still. Munsil is also a theatre director and has served as artistic director of Intrepid Theatre and the Victoria Fringe Festival.
Munsil was born in Seattle and raised in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. [2] She completed a BFA at the University of Victoria in 1980. She would go on to complete an MFA there in 2019. [3]
Munsil's play That Elusive Spark was a Governor General's Literary Award nominee for English-language drama at the 2014 Governor General's Awards. [4] Her play Be Still was adapted by Elizabeth Lazebnik into the 2021 film Be Still . [5] Her other plays have included Emphysema (A Love Story), [6] Circus Fire, [7] Influence, [8] I Have Seen Beautiful Jim Key, [9] Sveva, [10] Act of Faith, [11] The Ugly Duchess, [12] and a stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice . [1] Act of Faith is a mixed-ability play. [3]
She was formerly the artistic director of Victoria's Intrepid Theatre and the Victoria Fringe Festival, until leaving these roles in 2016. [13] Munsil is also a theatre director. Her directorial credits include Twelfth Night with the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival in 2016, [14] Born Yesterday with Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre in 2017, [15] and the Canadian College of Performing Arts' 2019 production of Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) . [16]
Canada's contemporary theatre reflects a rich diversity of regional and cultural identities. Since the late 1960s, there has been a concerted effort to develop the voice of the 'Canadian playwright', which is reflected in the nationally focused programming of many of the country's theatres. Within this 'Canadian voice' are a plurality of perspectives - that of the First Nations, new immigrants, French Canadians, sexual minorities, etc. - and a multitude of theatre companies have been created to specifically service and support these voices.
The Utah Shakespeare Festival is a theatrical festival that performs works by Shakespeare as their cornerstone. The Festival is held during the summer and fall on the campus of Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah, United States.
Michael Lewis MacLennan 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.
Jermyn Street Theatre is a performance venue situated on Jermyn Street, in London's West End. It is an off-west end studio theatre.
Phil Willmott is a British director, playwright, arts journalist, teacher, and founder of London based theatre production company The Steam Industry.
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Adrian Keith Noble is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.
Theatre of United Kingdom plays an important part in British culture, and the countries that constitute the UK have had a vibrant tradition of theatre since the Renaissance with roots going back to the Roman occupation.
The Ian Charleson Awards are theatrical awards that reward the best classical stage performances in Britain by actors under age 30. The awards are named in memory of the renowned British actor Ian Charleson, and are run by the Sunday Times newspaper and the National Theatre. The awards were established in 1990 after Charleson's death, and have been awarded annually since then. Sunday Times theatre critic John Peter (1938–2020) initiated the creation of the awards, particularly in memory of Charleson's extraordinary Hamlet, which he had performed shortly before his death. Recipients receive a cash prize, as do runners-up and third-place winners.
Les Waters is a British theatre director. Waters was the Artistic Director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville. He has directed plays Off-Broadway and also at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Actors Theatre.
Intrepid Theatre is a not-for-profit organization in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, that produces the annual Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival, Uno Fest: Canada’s Singular Live Theatre Event, and a year-round series of international theatre presentations and premieres for local independent theatre companies. Their mandate is to enhance the experience of live theatre in Victoria. Intrepid Theatre also created the Metro Studio and Intrepid Theatre Club – two small downtown Victoria theatre venues.
She Has a Name is a play about human trafficking written by Andrew Kooman in 2009 as a single act and expanded to full length in 2010. It is about the trafficking of children into sexual slavery and was inspired by the deaths of 54 people in the Ranong human-trafficking incident. Kooman had previously published literature, but this was his first full-length play. The stage premiere of She Has a Name was directed by Stephen Waldschmidt in Calgary, Alberta in February 2011. From May to October 2012, She Has a Name toured across Canada. In conjunction with the tour, A Better World raised money to help women and children who had been trafficked in Thailand as part of the country's prostitution industry. The first performances of She Has a Name in the United States took place in Folsom, California in 2014 under the direction of Emma Eldridge, who was a 23-year-old college student at the time.
Zinnie Harris FRSE is a British playwright, screenwriter and director currently living in Edinburgh. She has been commissioned and produced by the Royal Court Theatre, Royal National Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her plays have been translated and performed in many countries across Europe and the globe.
Rachel O'Riordan is an Irish theatre director. She is currently the artistic director at the Lyric Hammersmith, London.
Brighton Open Air Theatre, also known as B•O•A•T, is a British theatre built in Dyke Road Park, Brighton, which opened on 9 May 2015. It has been paid for not by corporate funding or public grants, but by private donations. The theatre is the legacy of the Brighton showman and construction manager, Adrian Bunting, who died of pancreatic cancer, aged 47, in May 2013.
Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) (1961) is a Canadian playwright, director, actor, and educator based out of Saskatchewan, Canada. She was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. She has contributed significantly to the creation and performance of Indigenous theatre in Canada.
Rose Napoli is a Canadian playwright and actor. Napoli is an alumnus of Nightwood Theatre's Write From the Hip Program where she developed her play Lo.
Fran Gebhard is a Canadian actress and theatre director. She is most noted for her performance in the 1987 film Blue City Slammers, for which she received a Genie Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 9th Genie Awards. She is currently a professor at the University of Victoria.
Kirk Andrew Dunn is an actor, writer, and fibre artist best known for his use of texture and colour in knitting, and most particularly, for the giant triptych installation, "Stitched Glass," and the one-man show he co-wrote and tours about that work, The Knitting Pilgrim.
John Emmet Tracy is an American-Canadian actor who has appeared in various film, television, and stage roles. He currently has a recurring role as Ellis Steele on the American television series, Yellowstone. He has previously held recurring roles on series like Batwoman and iZombie and was a series regular on the Syfy series, Olympus. Tracy has also appeared in films including American Mary (2012), If I Stay (2014), and Fifty Shades Freed (2018) and voiced the role of Thomas Jefferson in the video game Assassin's Creed III (2012).