blood.claat

Renowned Canadian playwright, activist, and theatre scholar, d’bi.young anitafrika, is celebrated for transformative theatre practices advocating social justice. A nonbinary African-Xaymacan-Tkarontonian womxn, their work, including the acclaimed Sankofa, Orisha, and Ibeyi Trilogies, demonstrates an unwavering commitment to Black queer feminist theatrical forms while rupturing colonial-systemic oppression. Accolades include three Dora Awards and numerous nominations, a KM Hunter Theatre Award, and a Global Leader in Theatre and Performance Award from Arts Council England.

Beyond writing, as Founding Artistic Director of Watah Theatre, d’bi.young has mentored hundreds of emerging playwright-performers into industry leaders. They conceived The Anitafrika Method, a decolonial performance praxis, nationally and globally applied in spaces like Soulpepper Theatre and the United Nations.

Presently a PhD candidate, d’bi.young is completing the first monograph on the transformative pedagogies of Black womxn theatre-makers in Canada.

“Each piece I write is an act of resistance, an act of love, a counter-narrative that aims to disrupt oppressive systems; carving out safe, healing spaces, while affirming our identities.” – d’bi.young anitafrika

Granite

Mishka Lavigne (she / her) is a playwright, screenwriter, and literary translator. Her plays have been developed and performed in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, Haiti, and Mexico.

Her play Havre, created at La Troupe du Jour (Saskatoon) received the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2019. Copeaux, produced by Théâtre de Dehors (Ottawa) was awarded the same prize in 2021, as well as the Prix Jacques-Poirier. Murs, initially produced as a podcast by Transistor Médias, Créations In Vivo and the Théâtre Populaire d’Acadie, received rave reviews in France and will be produced for the stage in 2023.

Mishka also writes in English. Her play Albumen, produced by TACTICS in 2019 (Ottawa), received the QWF Playwriting Prize and her play Shorelines was staged (TACTICS) in 2023.

As a translator of both French and English, Mishka has more than twenty credited translations of theatre, prose and poetry.

“Je m’intéresse à l’humanité de mes personnages, à leurs émotions, leurs pensées, leurs solitudes et leurs détresses. Je choisis de passer par l’intimité et l’intériorité des personnages pour les faire parler de choses plus grandes qu’eux. Je veux que les humains dans la salle puissent reconnaître ce qui est humain sur scène parce que c’est en ayant accès à cette humanité que le public vit une transformation.” – Mishka Lavigne

Offensive to Some

Berni Stapleton is a playwright, author, and actor. She is the Artistic Director of Girl Power Inc. She is co-artistic director of the Grand Falls-Windsor Theatre Project. She has spent her career making beautiful theatre in unexpected places. She has had almost forty plays professionally produced in Canada and beyond, including Ireland, the U.K. and New York. Her plays include the iconic Offensive to Some, Woman in a Monkey Cage, Brazil Square, and The Pope and Princess Di. Bernardine was writer-in-residence at Memorial University in 2019 and developed and taught their first introductory course in playwrighting. She has a new one person show in development called Antidote for Life: Memory, Madness, and the Performing Artist. She lives in St. John’s with rescue beagles Georgie Girl and Tiggy Duff.

“I write about ordinary people of Newfoundland-Labrador who harbour extraordinary stories. I write down their names. I gravitate toward one-woman/person plays that carry intimate revelations. I am fascinated by stories that have been forgotten, especially women’s stories. Playwriting is about lifting other voices.” – Berni Stapleton

carried away on the crest of a wave

David Yee is a mixed race (half Chinese, half Scottish) playwright and actor, born and raised in Toronto. He is the co-founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Theatre Company, Canada’s premiere professional Asian Canadian theatre company. A Dora Mavor Moore Award nominated actor and playwright, his work has been produced internationally and at home. He is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award nominee for his plays lady in the red dress and carried away on the crest of a wave, which won the award in 2015 along with the Carol Bolt Award in 2013. Yee has been in residence at Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre, the Stratford Festival, Cahoots Theatre and often works with theatre training institutions (NTS, U of T, TMU) to create new works for graduating cohorts using his unique Bespoke method of play creation. He currently teaches playwriting at the University of Toronto, and has worked extensively in the Asian Canadian community as an artist and an advocate.

“The art I have always pursued offers no simple answers. Rather, it compels us to ask better questions. It chases what is essential about our experience, what is urgent, what is honest.” – David Yee

Anywhere but here

Carmen Aguirre (she, her) is an award-winning theatre artist and author who has written and co-written more than 25 plays, including Chile Con Carne, The Refugee Hotel, The Trigger, Blue Box, Broken Tailbone, and Anywhere But Here, as well as the international bestseller and #1 in Canada, Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter (winner of CBC Canada Reads 2012), and its bestselling sequel, Mexican Hooker #1 and My Other Roles Since the Revolution. Carmen is currently writing an adaptation of Euripides’ Medea for Vancouver’s Rumble Theatre, and Moliere’s The Learned Ladies for Toronto’s Factory Theatre. She is a Core Artist at Electric Company Theatre and a co-founding member of the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC). She has more than 80 film, TV, and stage acting credits, including her award-winning lead role in the Canadian premiere of Stephen Adley Guirgis’ The Motherfucker with the Hat, and her Leo-nominated lead performance in the independent feature film Bella Ciao!. She is a graduate of Studio 58.

www.carmenaguirre.ca

free as injuns

2020 Laureate – Siminovitach Prize

Tara Beagan (she, her) is proud to be Ntlaka’pamux and, through her late father’s side, of Irish ancestry. She is cofounder/director of ARTICLE 11 with Andy Moro. Beagan served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts from February 2011 to December 2013. During her time, NEPA continued with traditional values for guidance, had an Elder in Residence, and named and moved into the Aki Studio. Beagan has been in residence at Cahoots Theatre (Toronto), NEPA (Toronto), the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) and Berton House (Dawson City, Yukon). She is now Playwright In Residence at Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg). Seven of her 28 plays are published. Two plays have received Dora Award nominations (one win). In 2018, Beagan was a finalist in the Alberta Playwrights’ Network competition. In 2020, Honour Beat won the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama. Recent premieres include Deer Woman in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Honour Beat opening the 2018/19 season at Theatre Calgary, The Ministry of Grace at Belfry Theatre in Victoria, and Super in Plays2Perform@Home with Boca Del Lupo (Vancouver).

Tara Beagan | Siminovitch Prize in Theatre

www.article11.ca

Moule Robert

A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s writing program, Martin Bellemare (il) was awarded the 2009 Gratien Gélinas Prize for Le Chant de Georges Boivin. La Liberté was presented at La Rubrique (Jonquière) in 2013 and in Montreal in 2015, and was scheduled to be staged in Ottawa in 2020. Maître Karim la perdrix (2018 Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone, awarded by the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) will premiere at the Théâtre des Capucins in Luxembourg in 2021. Moule Robert (CNL Scholarship, shortlisted for the 2017 Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone and the 2018 Michel Tremblay Prize) was produced simultaneously at La Rubrique and at the POCHE/ GVE in Geneva, then at the Théâtre de Belleville in Paris. Martin is a four-time recipient of the Aide à la création grant from the Centre national du Théâtre/ARTCENA in Paris, and two of his plays are included in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française. Two of his plays for young audiences, Un château sur le dosand Des pieds et des mains, which was first produced at the NAC, have toured in Canada and internationally. In 2019, Extraordinaire et mystérieux and Charlie et le djingpouite were produced, and Cœur minéral (Governor General’s Literary Awards, Winner 2020) premiered at the Francophonies in Limoges.

Crawlspace

Karen Hines’ (she, her) multi-prize-winning plays offer keen musings on modern life, combining such disparate elements as magical realism, pink-brand feminism and environmental disarray. Her solo performances and ‘little’ films featuring her darkly comic character ‘Pochsy’ have traveled the globe. Hines has collaborated as a director and dramaturg with many fellow artists, and her productions, plays and performances have seen venues like One Yellow Rabbit, Joe’s Pub (Public Theatre), Astor Place Off-Broadway, Tarragon, Videofag, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, NAC. For Festival du Jamais Lu 2022, Hines’ ‘Tous les petits animaux que j’ai dévouré’ was translated and staged (Mishka Lavigne; Lisa L’Heureux) and Hines’ real estate horror Crawlspace continues to micro-theatres across Canada in French and English. Crawlspace is being adapted as screenplay, and is now a CBC podcast (PlayMe; Radio One). Upcoming, Pochsy IV premieres January 2023.

Home – Keep Frozen

ColoniséEs

Annick Lefebvre (elle) holds a degree in playwriting and theatre critique from UQAM (2004). She is the founder of Le Crachoir, a company dedicated to placing the author, female or not, at the centre of the creation-production-performance process. She has written several plays, including Ce samedi il pleuvait (shortlisted for the 2013 Michel-Tremblay Award); La machine à révolte (shortlisted for the 2015 Louise-LaHaie Award); J’accuse (shortlisted for the 2015 Michel-Tremblay Award, the 2015 Critics’ Choice Award from the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre [AQCT] and the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award); Les barbelés (shortlisted for the 2019 Critics’ Choice Award from the AQCT); ColoniséEs (winner of the 2019 Michel-Tremblay Award and shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award); and several short scripts for collective events. She adapted J’accuse twice, once for a production in Belgium, and once for a French production. Annick Lefebvre was chosen as protégée by playwright Olivier Choinière, laureate of the 2014 Siminovitch Prize. Her plays are published by Dramaturges Éditeurs.

French Language Translator – carried away on the crest of a wave

Born in Egypt, where she spent her childhood, Maryse arrived in Montreal at the age of 9½, where she learned English by watching “Happy Days”. In 1991, Pierre Bernard, the director of Quat’Sous, not content with simply making her his assistant, also offered her the opportunity to undertake her first translation, Traces d’étoiles  (Brilliant Traces) by Cindy Lou Johnson. The play was such a success that it marked the beginning of an unexpected career.

Since then, she has completed over 75 translations. Her work has helped introduce the French-speaking Quebec public to numerous Canadian authors, such as Daniel Brooks, Kate Hennig, Daniel MacIvor, John Mighton, Morris Panych, Erin Shields, and George F. Walker. She has also translated American, British, Scottish, and Irish authors: Christopher Durang, Margaret Edson, David Greig, David Hare, David Mamet, Douglas Maxwell, Harold Pinter, Philip Ridley, and Simon Stephens.

Her work on George F. Walker’s Motel de passage (Suburban Motel) series received the Masque Award for Translation in 2000 and was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award, but it was her translation of Greg MacArthur’s Toxique ou L’incident dans l’autobus (The Toxic Bus Incident) that earned her this honor in 2011.

Many of her translations have been published—L’Homme laid (Boréal), the Motel de passage series (vlb éditeur), Bye Bye Baby (L’instant scène), Traces d’étoiles (Lux), Toxique (Dramaturges éditeurs)—or adapted for the screen by noted directors such as Claude Desrosiers (Traces d’étoiles) and Louis Bélanger (Le Génie du crime).

In 2026, audiences will be able to see her translations of Joan Yago’s À partir de là at La Licorne and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Parachute libre at the Rideau Vert.

French Language Translator – blood.claat

Djennie Laguerre is an actress, writer, and storyteller. She is a graduate of the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in NYC and has a BA from the University of Ottawa. Her theatre credits as a performer include The Imaginary Invalid, Les Zinspirés I & III (Théâtre français de Toronto), Seventeen (Anonymous), and Women (Infintheatre). She is the writer, performer, and translator of Rendez-vous with home ⁄ Lakay and Manman la mer/Mother Sea. Manman la mer (Catapulte Theatre, Ottawa), which premiered in Ottawa before being presented at the MASA Festival in the Ivory Coast in March 2020, and toured New Brunswick, Saskatoon, Montreal, and Quebec City from 2022 to 2024. The show won the Prix Rideau Awards in 2020 for Production of the Year and Best Actress. The English version, Mother Sea, had its premiere this past February ’26’ at the Undercurrent Festival. Her latest TYA play, Taking Care of Maman, a Roseneath Theatre and Black Theatre Workshop production, has been translated by the author into French and Haitian Creole; Prendre soin de mom will be touring schools, in French and English, in the fall of 2026 and winter 2027, from Montreal and Toronto to Saskatoon. TCM has been touring a school near you since fall 2024 and has gotten the author nominated for Best New TYA Work 2042. For 20 years, Djennie has been a bilingual educational artist for the Ontario Arts Council, YPT, and Theatre Direct.

French Language Translator: Malaisant
Translated from Offensive to Some by Berni Stapleton

Sonya Malaborza wears many hats in the literary scene of Atlantic Canada, but she is perhaps best known for her work as a literary translator. For the past twenty years, she has been translating novels, poems, and plays from English, and occasionally from Spanish. L’accoucheuse de Scots Bay, her translation of Ami McKay’s novel The Birth House, earned her a nomination for the Governor General’s Literary Awards in 2021. Sonya is also an author: her first collection, Prendre racine, was the recipient of the 2024 Antonine-Maillet Award. In her role as an editor, Sonya supports authors and translators at Éditions Prise de parole, where she serves as co-executive director and editorial director. Malaisant (Offensive to Some) marks a return to theatrical translation, a form she is particularly fond of.

www.sonyamalaborza.com

English Language Translator – Granite

David Gagnon Walker is a writer, performer, and translator born in Edmonton and based in Toronto. His work has been performed and developed in cities across Canada, and through residencies in Sweden, Finland, France, Australia, and the USA. David’s play This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear has toured widely and is published by Playwrights Canada Press. His newest show, I Would Prefer Not To, premiered in January 2026 at High Performance Rodeo. Other recent projects include Premium Content (Major Matt Mason Collective), The Last Children (Curtain Razors Theatre), and the English translation of Gabrielle Chapdelaine’s The Retreat (Imago Theatre). David is a graduate of the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada. More information at www.davidgagnonwalker.com.

French Language Translator – free as injuns

Since his Gémeaux nomination for hosting the young adult show, C’est parti mon tipi, Charles (he, him) has become a regular presence on Aboriginal People’s Television Network. He is the lead of Sioui-Bacon and the host of Sans reserve a new talk show on APTN french. On screen, he has appeared in a variety of productions, both in English and in French, such as Eaux Turbulentes (Blik TV and KO TV) and Being Human (Muse Productions). On stage, he has worked with many companies with social justice as part of their mandate such as Teesri Duniya, Ondinnok and Tableau d’Hôte. He was also the host of the four-part documentary series, Le 8e feu (8th Fire), a series tackling a variety of contemporary First-Nation issues, produced and aired by Radio-Canada. He is co artistic director of Productions Menuentakuan and signed both the translation and direction of the 2018 production of Where The Blood Mixes, one of the most celebrated play in contemporary indigenous dramaturgy. He sits on the board of directors of a variety of organisations that promote and defend first nation issues in Canada.

Fench Language Translator – Anywhere but here

Emmanuelle Jimenez (she, her, hers) trained in performance at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal. While continuing working as an actor, she devoted herself to writing. Her plays include Du vent entre les dents (Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui), Rêvez, montagnes! (Nouveau Théâtre Expérimental), Le dénominateur commun co-written with François Archambault (Théâtre Debout), Cendres (Des pieds des mains), and Bébés co-written with Alexis Martin (Nouveau Théâtre Expérimental). She’s led numerous cultural projects, including with La Maison Bleue in Côte-des-Neiges and the Montreal North Cultural and Community House. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Festival du jamais Lu from 2003 to 2010 and has been a member of the AQAD Board of Directors since 2014.

French Language Translator – Crawlspace

Mishka Lavigne (she, her) is a playwright and literary translator based in Ottawa/Gatineau. Her plays have been produced, read and developed in Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany and the United States. Her plays Havre and Copeau were awarded the Governor General’s Literary Prize for Drama (French). Her recent play Copeaux, a movement-based poetic creation piece with director É Perron premiered in Ottawa in March 2020. She is currently working on her new play Shorelines and her first opera libretto with composer Tim Brady. Mishka is a National New Play Network (USA) alumni playwright as well as a member of the PGC and CEAD.

English Language Translator – ColoniséEs

Johanna Nutter (she, euro-settler, multidisciplinary artist) developed her passion for translation through acting: being one of few bilingual theatre artists, she played leading roles at Centaur and La Licorne. Johanna is known for her solo play my pregnant brother/mon frère est enceinte, which she translated during a residency in Tadoussac, accompanied by Linda Gaboriau. The show toured across Canada and Quebec in both languages, and to the UK and Belgium. Subsequently, she translated the works of Annick Lefebvre (Barbed Wire), Guillaume Corbeil (You’ll Go Looking for Her), and Florence Longpré & Nicolas Michon’s ballet-theatre hybrid CHLORINE, which she also produced and directed at Centaur, with her company creature/creature.

www.creature/creature.org

English Language Translator – Moule Robert

Jack Paterson (he, him) is a Vancouver launched translator, devisor, director, dramaturg and creative producer whose practice has taken him across Canada, UK, EU and around the world. His work ranges from contemporary devised creation, multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural and multi-lingual projects to new works, new texts, and contemporary approaches to classical theatre. He is a recipient of The Ray Michal Body of Work Award, The Cole Foundation Award for Emerging Translators, and The John Moffat & Larry Lillo West Coast Artist Award.

His translations include The Ballad of Georges Boivin by Martin Bellemare, The Naughty Children’s Bedtime Stories by Etienne Lepage, Kiwi by Daniel Danis, and Horses from Horses from Heaven Fall in a Rain of Ash by Naghmeh Samini (Iran).

www.JackPatersonTheatre.com

Yolanda Ferrato (she, her) is a Nova Scotia based translator, theatre artist, and arts manager . She served as Artistic Associate with the London Quebec Culture Festival with whom she directed the UK premiere of Larry Tremblay’s The Ventriloquist and translated Porcupine by David Paquet. As an Arts Manager, she has worked with Tarragon Theatre and Driftwood Theatre and produced Gargantua’s work at Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre, and SummerWorks. She is also a contributing author to New Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Theory and Practice, published in 2014 by Methuen Drama.