Norman Foster, OC (born February 14, 1949) is a Canadianplaywright, considered to be Canada's most produced playwright. Foster discovered his talents as a playwright in Fredericton, New Brunswick, while he was working as host of a popular morning radio show. He accompanied a friend (Peter Spurway) to an audition, and landed his first acting job, as Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey, without ever having even seeing a play. Intrigued with the theatre, he set his pen to paper and wrote his first play titled Sinners.
In 1983 and 1984, Theatre New Brunswick mounted the first professional productions of Sinners and Foster's next play The Melville Boys. In the years following, TNB introduced My Darling Judith (1987), The Affections of May (1990), The Motor Trade (1991), Wrong for Each Other (1992), and Office Hours (1996).
An extremely prolific writer, Foster has had more than fifty plays produced on professional stages. Other well-known plays include The Love List, The Long Weekend; Bedtime Stories; Kiss the Moon, Kiss the Sun; Storm Warning; Skin Flick; Outlaw; Hilda's Yard; On A First Name Basis; Old Love; Mending Fences,Here on the Flight Path, The Foursome and The Ladies Foursome.[1] Frequently compared to American playwright Neil Simon, Foster pens plays that are known for their humour, accessibility, and insight into the everyday tribulations of life.[2] Foster's work is frequently produced by theatre groups across North America, and as far away from his home in Canada as Australia.[3] Beginning in June 2016, The Norm Foster Theatre Festival[4] in St. Catharines, Ontario celebrated the work of this Canadian playwright.[5]
William Robertson Davies 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", a term Davies gladly accepted for himself. Davies was the founding Master of Massey College, a graduate residential college associated with the University of Toronto.
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.
David Benson French, OC was a Canadian playwright, most noted for his "Mercer Plays" series of Leaving Home, Of the Fields, Lately, Salt-Water Moon, 1949 and Soldier's Heart.
Daniel David Moses was a Canadian poet and playwright.
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 Shaw Festival is a not-for-profit theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. The Shaw Festival was founded in 1962. Originally, it only featured productions written by George Bernard Shaw, but changes were later implemented by Christopher Newton and Jackie Maxwell that widened the theatre's scope. As of 2019, the theatre company was considered to be one of the largest 20 employers in the Niagara Region.
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.
Humour is an integral part of the Canadian identity. There are several traditions in Canadian humour in both English and French. While these traditions are distinct and at times very different, there are common themes that relate to Canadians' shared history and geopolitical situation in North America and the world. Though neither universally kind nor moderate, humorous Canadian literature has often been branded by author Dick Bourgeois-Doyle as "gentle satire," evoking the notion embedded in humorist Stephen Leacock's definition of humour as "the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life and the artistic expression thereof."
Craig Lucas is an American playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, musical actor, and film director.
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 and George F. Walker.
The Drawer Boy is a play by Michael Healey. It is a two-act play set in 1972 on a farm near Clinton, Ontario. There are only three characters: the farm's two owners, Morgan and Angus, and Miles Potter, a young actor from Toronto doing research for a collectively created theatre piece about farming.
Prince Gomolvilas is a Thai American playwright. He has written many plays which have been produced in the United States and won several distinctive awards, including a PEN Center USA West Literary Award for Drama.
Walter John Learning was a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.
Elliott Hayes was an aspiring Canadian playwright when he was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.
Vittorio Luciano Rossi is a playwright, actor and screenwriter born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He grew up in the district of Ville Emard. Graduating from Concordia University in 1985 with a B.F.A. specializing in theatre performance, Rossi has earned the respect of the national theatre community with his award-winning plays. Mr. Rossi received two consecutive Best New Play Awards at the Quebec Drama Festival in 1986 and 1987 with Little Blood Brother and Backstreets. His plays have been produced in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, New York City, Boston, Syracuse and The Stratford Festival in Ontario.
Dan O’Brien is an American playwright, poet, memoirist, essayist, and librettist. His most prominent works have been the play The Body of an American and the poetry collection War Reporter. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2015–16. His play The House in Scarsdale: A Memoir for the Stage was the winner of the 2018 PEN America Award for Drama.
Arthur M. Jolly is an American playwright and screenwriter. In 2006, he was awarded an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for his comedy The Free Republic of Bobistan.
Anne Washburn is an American playwright.
Barry Webster is a Canadian writer. Originally from Toronto, Ontario, he is currently based in Montreal, Quebec.
Drayton Entertainment is a not-for-profit professional theatre company based in Southwestern Ontario operating seven venues across the province: the original Drayton Festival Theatre in Drayton, Huron Country Playhouse and Playhouse II in Grand Bend, King's Wharf Theatre in Penetanguishene, Schoolhouse Theatre in St. Jacobs, St. Jacobs Country Playhouse in Waterloo, and Hamilton Family Theatre Cambridge, formerly Dunfield Theatre Cambridge in Cambridge.
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