Personal life
Bonnell identifies as queer and two-spirit. [9]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
Yolanda Bonnell | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Fort William First Nation |
| Citizenship | Canada |
| Alma mater | Humber College |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, playwright |
| Notable work | Bug (2018 play) |
Yolanda Bonnell is a Canadian actress and playwright. She is most noted for her play Bug, which was a Governor General's Award nominee for English-language drama at the 2020 Governor General's Awards. [1]
An Anishinaabe member of the Fort William First Nation near Thunder Bay, Ontario and a graduate of Humber College's theatre school, she had her first significant acting role in a 2016 production of Judith Thompson's play The Crackwalker. [2]
Her subsequent roles included a 2018 production of Kim Senklip Harvey's Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story, [3] and a 2019 production of Marie Clements's The Unnatural and Accidental Women. [4] In 2022, Bonnell premiered White Girls in Moccasins at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre [5] and My Sister's Rage at Tarragon Theatre. [6]
Her play bug was staged at various theatre festivals, including the annual Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times, beginning in 2015, and was a Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee for Outstanding New Play in 2019. It received its most widespread attention in early 2020, when a production by Theatre Passe Muraille saw Bonnell make a public request that the play be reviewed only by BIPOC theatre critics. [7] Bonnell explained her request by noting that she had previously received racist reviews for her work, including from a critic who asserted that it was fit only to be seen on Indian reserves, and stated that "In Toronto, critics are mostly white and male. They come at Indigenous art with a different lens – that often comes back to 'If I don't understand it, that means it's not good or it's not a valid form of theatre'. I don't mind being critiqued. But at least let it come from a place of knowledge, of understanding what you're talking about." [8]
Bonnell identifies as queer and two-spirit. [9]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
The National Arts Centre (NAC) is a performing arts organization in Ottawa, Ontario, along the Rideau Canal. It is based in the eponymous National Arts Centre building.
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.
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.
Evalyn Parry is a Canadian performance-maker, theatrical innovator and singer-songwriter. She grew up in Toronto, Ontario in the Kensington Market neighbourhood. Her music combines elements of spoken word and folk.
Salvatore Antonio is a Canadian actor and playwright.
In Gabriel's Kitchen is the debut play of Salvatore Antonio, centering on an Italian-Canadian family's reaction to their son's homosexuality. For Gabriel, the youngest son, falling in love leads to decisions which cannot be reversed. For Gabriel's family, the subsequent loss of their favorite child means a silence of denial and the slow crumbling of a family built on Old World morals.
Marie Clements is a Canadian Métis playwright, performer, director, producer and screenwriter. She was the founding artistic director of Urban Ink Productions, and is currently co-artistic director of Red Diva Projects, and director of her new film company Working Pajama Lab Entertainment. Clements lives on Galiano Island, British Columbia. As a writer she has worked in a variety of media including theatre, performance, film, multi-media, radio and television.
Mark Brownell is a Toronto-based playwright and co-artistic director of the Pea Green Theatre Group with his wife, Sue Miner.
Cheri Maracle is an Aboriginal Canadian actress and musician of Mohawk-Irish descent.
Hannah Moscovitch is a Canadian playwright who rose to national prominence in the 2000s. She is best known for her plays East of Berlin, This Is War, "Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story", and Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, for which she received the 2021 Governor General's Award for English-language drama.
David Yee is a Canadian actor and playwright. His play lady in the red dress was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English language drama at the 2010 Governor General's Awards. His play carried away on the crest of a wave won this award at the 2015 Governor General's Awards. In 2023, David was named as the Laureate of the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, which recognizes artists whose groundbreaking work is advancing the art form. The Siminovitch jury praised David's unique and prolific voice as well as his advocacy in the Asian Canadian community.
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.
Margaret Hollingsworth is a Canadian writer. Best known as a playwright, she has also published a novel and short stories.
The Unnatural and Accidental Women is a play by Metis playwright Marie Clements about the disappearance of multiple Indigenous women from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver whose deaths of extremely high blood-alcohol levels were all caused by one man, Gilbert Paul Jordan.
Morwyn Brebner is a Welsh playwright, television writer and producer, best known as creator and producer of the television series Rookie Blue and Saving Hope.
Anna Chatterton is a Canadian playwright, who was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2017 Governor General's Awards for her play Within the Glass.
Lisa Codrington is a Canadian character actress and playwright. She is most noted for her role as Gail on the comedy series Letterkenny and her theatrical plays Cast Iron, which was a nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2006 Governor General's Awards, and Up the Garden Path, which won the Carol Bolt Award in 2016.
Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes is a 2020 play written by Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch. It is the winner of the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language drama. The play was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2021.
Bug is a play by Indigenous playwright Yolanda Bonnell that was a Governor General's Award 2020 finalist. The play is the story of an Indigenous mother and daughter, their substance addictions, incorporating themes of racialised and colonial violence.
