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

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.