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.
Frances Hyland was a Canadian stage, film and television actress. She earned recognition for roles on stage and screen. Honoured with the Governor General's Performing Arts Award in 1994, she was called "the first lady of Canadian theatre".
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is Canada's oldest ballet company and the longest continuously operating ballet company in North America.
Chief Dan George was a chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a Coast Salish band whose Indian reserve is located on Burrard Inlet in the southeast area of the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He also was an actor, musician, poet and author. The Chief's best-known written work is My Heart Soars. As an actor, he is best remembered for portraying Old Lodge Skins opposite Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man (1970), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and for his role in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), as Lone Watie, opposite Clint Eastwood.
George Ryga was a Canadian playwright, actor and novelist. His writings explored the experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada, among other themes. His most famous work is The Ecstasy of Rita Joe.
George Manuel, OC was an Aboriginal leader in Canada. Born and raised in British Columbia, he became politically active there and in Alberta. In 1970 he was elected and served until 1976 as chief of the National Indian Brotherhood. In 1975 he founded and became president of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples, serving until 1981.
The Collectors was a Canadian psychedelic rock band active in the 1960s.
Ann Mortifee, is a Canadian singer, composer and librettist, author, storyteller, and keynote speaker. Her music blends folk, musical theatre, pop, sacred and world music. She is a member of the Order of Canada, one of the highest honours bestowed on civilians by the Government of Canada.
Margo Gwendolyn Kane is a Cree-Saulteaux performing artist and writer known for her solo-voice or monodrama works Moonlodge and Confessions of an Indian Cowboy, as well as her work with Full Circle First Nations Performance.
Unnatural & Accidental is a 2006 Canadian film directed by Carl Bessai and starring Carmen Moore, Callum Keith Rennie, and Tantoo Cardinal. It was adapted from a Marie Clements play The Unnatural and Accidental Women.
The Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company was a regional Canadian theatre company, producing plays from 1962 to 2012. The following is a list of the productions that have been staged since its inception to its final season of 2011–2012.
Michelle Thrush is a Canadian actress and First Nations activist for Aboriginal Canadians and the other Indigenous peoples of the Americas. She is best known for her leading role as Gail Stoney in Blackstone, for which she won the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role in 2011, and her recurring roles as Sylvie LeBret in North of 60 and Deanna Martin in Arctic Air.
Norbert Vesak, one of Canada's leading choreographers in the 1970s, was a ballet dancer, choreographer, theatrical director, master teacher, dance columnist, lecturer, and opera ballet director, known for his unique, flamboyant style and his multimedia approach to classical and contemporary choreography. He is credited with helping to bring modern dance to Western Canada.
Kevin Loring is a Canadian playwright and actor. As a playwright, he won the Governor General's Award for English-language drama, the Herman Voaden Playwriting Competition and the Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Original Script, and was nominated for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, for Where the Blood Mixes in 2009. His 2019 play, Thanks for Giving, was short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Drama. In June 2021 Kevin Loring received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Arts.
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.
Early Native American culture was rich with ceremonies, rituals and storytelling. The stories that inspire Native American theatre have been around for hundreds of years, but did not gain formal recognition by colonial America. This lack of recognition lasted until the 1930s when Lynn Riggs, a playwright of Cherokee descent, brought Native Theatre into the spotlight through the Six Nations Reserve Forest Theatre in Ontario. Through these events, Native Theatre has been introduced to mainstream society and contemporary Native American Theater was born. Indigenous American cultures have been a major aspect of Chicano drama.
David Charles Rotenberg was a Canadian author and professor emeritus of theatre studies at York University, where he taught graduate students for over 25 years, as well at the Professional Actors Lab in Toronto, which he founded as the artistic director. David Rotenberg has been referred to as one of Canada's "most notable acting teachers and coaches," and may be the nation's best known master acting teacher. During the formative part of his career, he was a theatre director in New York City and staged two Broadway shows, returning to Toronto in 1987. In 1994, he directed the first Canadian play to be staged in the People's Republic of China, which inspired his career as a novelist, beginning with the five Zhong Fong mysteries set in modern Shanghai as well as the historical fiction novel Shanghai. After writing a series of speculative thrillers set in The Junction, Toronto, he began a science fiction series in 2017. He passed away on Nov 9, 2023.
Lisa C. Ravensbergen is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer of Ojibwe/Swampy Cree and English/Irish descent, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ravensbergen is a Jessie-nominated actor, dramaturge, director and dancer. Ravensbergen is an Associate Artist with Full Circle First Nations Performance Group and Playwright-in-Residence with Delinquent Theatre. She holds undergraduate degrees from Trinity Western University and Simon Fraser University and an MA in Cultural Studies from Queens University.
David Emmett Gardner was a Canadian actor from the 1940s to 2000s. Gardner began acting with CBC Radio in the mid-1940s. By the late 1950s, some of his theatrical roles were at the Royal Alexandra Theatre and the West end theatre. As an actor, Gardner received a Canadian Film Award in 1976 and a Gemini Award in 1997.
