2024 PGC Conference

Laura Mullin is a published playwright and writer, a director, producer, and the Co-Artistic Director of the award-winning Expect Theatre. She is also the Co-Host and Producer of CBC’s PlayME Podcast, transforming plays into binge-able audio dramas. PlayME won Gold at the New York Festival Radio Awards and is a Webby Award Honoree.

Laura has worked in film, TV, radio, and theatre and has regularly contributed to CBC.ca. Her short story “History of Visual Sources” won the Open Book Short Story contest, and her play of the same name received an Honourable Mention for the National Voaden Playwright Prize. She recently wrote the seven-part original audio drama series Tunnel Runners, which she co-created with Chris Tolley and will be released in October 2024.

Her work with Expect Theatre has been nominated for five Dora Awards in the General Category and shortlisted twice for the Toronto Arts Foundation Awards. Notable works include Romeo/Juliet Remixed; The Tunnel Runners (originally a CBC Radio commission); STATIC (Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage Festival); AWAKE (Next Stage Festival); Awake The Film (film festivals across North America and Europe); Rapid Eye Movement, Profile, Relay (Nuit Blanche); One Sleepless Night (International Festival
of Authors); Burusera (national 21-city tour commissioned and produced by Watermark Theatre) which was developed into a pilot for CBC TV, and the CBC Kids series Mini Makeover.

Kirk Dunn was born on Amherst Island, grew up in North Bay, ON, graduated from York University’s Theatre Performance Programme in the ‘80s, and is a writer, actor and fibre artist whose recent work has been exploring the intersectionality of writing, acting, and knitting. Kirk has written for TV and the stage, with his TYA shows The Lost Land and Derek the Viking both winning StoryBook Theatre’s playwrighting competition.  Since 2019, Kirk has toured nationally and internationally with The Knitting Pilgrim, a play he wrote with his partner, Claire Ross Dunn, chronicling his experience hand-knitting three huge tapestries in the style of stained-glass windows exploring the commonalities and conflicts between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—a project that ultimately took 15 years to complete. Kirk and Claire’s new play, Spycraft, follows the exploits of a 50-year-old Canadian female Allied operative in WWII who stitches coded intelligence into her knitting while spying on the Nazis in occupied France. Supported by a Canada Council grant, the play is set to premiere at Stirling Festival Theatre in November 2025, and tour across Ontario thereafter. Next up is a fun and fast-paced two-handed Carol’s Christmas Carol which Kirk and Claire are currently writing and will be available to perform in 2025

Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright,director and dramaturg who works across Turtle Island. Her works include the plays The Unplugging, The Diviners (with Vern Thiessen), the dance-opera Bearing, the libretto Shanawdithit, the short play-for-film Katharsis, the VR piece Reconciling. She recently co-created Wreckonciliation with Marion Newman and Melody Courage at Opera Kelowna, and is working on a musical adaptation of The Englishman’s Boy with Ian Cusson, Allan Gilliland, Josh Languedoc, Vern Thiessen and Royce Vavrek. In June, she directed the orchestral workshop of Indians on Vacation, by Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek, adapted from the novel by Thomas King, as part of the Banff Centre’s InterPlay Chamber and Opera Program. Other directing projects include Frances Koncan’s Women of the Fur Trade at Stratford Festival, Julie Tamiko Manning’s Mizushōbai at Tableau d’Hôte, Leah-Simone Bowen’s The Flood at Imago, both in Montreal, and Donna-Michelle St. Bernard’s play The First Stone at New Harlem and GCTC in Toronto and Ottawa. From 2003-2011, she served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. Her book, Medicine Shows, about Indigenous performance in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015.

Leah-Simone Bowen is an award-winning playwright, director, performer, educator and producer. As a writer, Leah’s work has been produced and published across Canada and the United States. As a librettist, the premier production of her adaptation of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha was included in the New York Times’ Best Classical Music Performances of 2023. In addition to her work in Theatre, she is a broadcaster and podcast producer. She created and co-hosts the hit irreverent history series The Secret Life of Canada, which was the first independently created show to be picked up by the CBC. In 2021, CBC Radio One announced her as the new permanent host of Podcast Playlist, a weekly show that also airs across the US on PRX.

Kanika is a playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. She is a graduate of Canadian Film Centre’s Bell Media Primetime TV Program and Associate Artistic Director of Necessary Angel Theatre Company.

Kanika’s work has premiered at stages and screens large and small in Toronto and in the USA. Her critically acclaimed play, “our place,” is a recipient of a Dora Mavor Moore Award for “Outstanding New Play”,  her opera “Of the Sea” with composer Ian Cusson premiered to great acclaim at Toronto’s historical Bluma Appel Theatre. Her children’s play “Truth” received a Dora Mavor Moore Award for “Outstanding New Play”. Other credits include celebrated digital opera work “Tak-Tak-Shoo” at Opera Philadelphia with composer Rene Orth,  “Anansi and the Great Light” at Curtis Institute (Philadelphia) and “The Big Easy: Music of New Orleans” at Soulpepper.

A long-time resident of Scarborough, Kanika currently lives in Orono, Ontario with her husband and two sons.

Marcia Johnson is a Jamaican-born Toronto-based theatre artist who sometimes works in TV, film and audiobooks.

Serving Elizabeth, premiered in February 2020 at Western Canada Theatre (co- produced with Thousand Islands Playhouse). It had five additional productions at the Stratford Festival, Thousand Islands Playhouse, Belfry Theatre, Peterborough Players (NH) and Theatre Aquarius. It streams on the Stratford Festival site and is a PlayMe Podcast audio drama. Marcia has written two plays for video: A Magical Place National Transformations Project National Arts Centre/Stratford and All the Colours for Bad Hats Theatre.

With composer Stephen A. Taylor, Marcia collaborated on the opera Paradises Lost, based on the Ursula K. Le Guin novella which premiered at University of Illinois and had a concert performance at the SummerWorks Festival in Toronto. Their first collaboration, My Mother’s Ring, was nominated for Outstanding New Musical or Opera at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards.

Recent acting work includes two short films Memento Mori (directed and co-written by Andrew Moodie with Emily Hurson) and Comics, written by Veronika Gribanova and directed by K. Knox. She also had small roles in the TV movie The Color of Love and in the final season of CBC’s Diggstown. In 2021, appeared in the Thousand Islands Playhouse production of Serving Elizabeth and in the podcast version. She can also be heard in the Keith Barker audio drama Every Moment of Every Day (Factory Theatre). Last year, Marcia was in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time at YES/Sudbury Theatre Centre.

Hiro Kanagawa is a Vancouver-based writer and actor.  His play Indian Arm received the 2017 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Drama.  His other plays include The Tiger of Malaya and The Patron Saint of Stanley Park, both of which have been performed across Canada as have many of his shorter works:  Gaia for Climate Change Theatre Action, Out of the Blue for Boca del Lupo’s Red Phone and Negotiations for Boca’s Plays2Perform@Home.  Hiro’s latest play, Forgiveness, an adaptation of Mark Sakamoto’s bestselling memoir of the same name, received both a Betty Mitchell Award and Calgary Theatre Critics’ Award for Outstanding New Play and was a 2023 Governor-General’s Literary Award finalist.  Forgiveness is next slated to make its Ontario premiere at the 2025 Stratford Festival.  For the screen, Hiro was story editor on the critically-acclaimed Canadian television series Da Vinci’s Inquest, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Intelligence and Blackstone and the upcoming feature film Dusk & Dawn.  As an actor he is perhaps best-known for his numerous recurring and guest starring roles on popular television and streaming series such as Star Trek:  Discovery, Altered Carbon, The X-Files, iZombie and many more.

Photographed by David Strongman

Colin Rivers is co-owner of Marquis Entertainment and Marquis Literary, in partnership with Robert Richardson.

Founded in 1996, Marquis Entertainment was launched with a purpose of developing and producing Canadian theatrical plays/productions that exhibit national and international appeal. Marquis Entertainment quickly established itself as a leader in the industry and expanded its focus to include representation and promotion of Canadian theatrical work for both national and international markets, as well as selectively co-producing international theatre productions in Canada.

Marquis Literary is the agency division of Marquis Entertainment. It was launched by Colin Rivers in 2012. Marquis Literary is now the operational hub for the representation and promotion of playwrights/composers/lyricists within Canada and international markets, with a specialized focus on musical theatre and commercial development opportunities. Over the past decade Marquis Literary has grown into the largest literary agency in Canada with a core mandate to promote the voices of writers for the stage, and proudly celebrates a roster of 100+ first-class artists, including multiple Siminovitch Prize winners, Governor General Award winners and dozens of Dora, Jesse and Tom Hendry Award-Winners, and with thousands of productions having been produced, including with Mirvish Productions, on London’s West End and Off Broadway, as well as regional theatres coast to coast in Canada and the US, throughout Europe and with international companies from Japan to South Africa.

www.MQlit.ca

Pamela Halstead is a dramaturge, director, actor, educator and arts administrator based in Kjipuktuk, colonially known as Halifax. She served for six years as Artistic Director of Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre, assisting and supporting playwrights from across Atlantic Canada and beyond. Pamela has served as Artistic Director for Lunchbox Theatre (Calgary, AB) and Ship’s Company Theatre (Parrsboro, NS). In the 10 years between these two companies, she dramaturged, directed and/or produced over 60 productions, primarily premieres of new works. Most recently, Pamela served as the Interim Artistic Producer of Theatre Newfoundland Labrador, leading the organization through a time of significant change. Pamela is the recipient of the inaugural Evans Award (2013 Calgary Critics’ Awards) for her contribution to the vibrancy of Calgary’s theatre community, the 2019 PGC Bra d’Or Award winner for her support and promotion of Canadian women playwrights, and the 2024 Robert Merritt Legacy Award for outstanding contribution to the professional theatre in Nova Scotia. 

Rebecca Lashmar is an actor, writer, and intimacy director currently residing in Toronto, Canada. She recently completed her MA at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto with a research interest in how sexuality, violence and mental health crises are depicted on stage and screen. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Honours Acting from the University of Windsor, a diploma in Art Administration and Leadership from Queen’s University and is a certified Artistic Mental Health Practitioner. With a focus on consent-based and trauma informed practices, Rebecca has a love for unapologetic storytelling, collaboration and text analysis. She sits on both the Marketing and Outreach Committee and the Workshop Committee at the National Society of Intimacy Professionals (NSIP), a not-for-profit organization that provides resources and ongoing training to intimacy professionals in Canada, as well as internationally. This past year, Rebecca spoke at the first-ever Intimacy Conference for Intimacy Coordination in Berlin, Germany and at The Great Canadian Playwright Showcase. When not in the theatre or in the library, Rebecca enjoys horror films, reading, and baking.

Select writing projects include; “They Kiss: How Intimacy Directors Translate Intimate Stage Directions” (University of Toronto, Thesis) “On Burnout Culture” (smART Magazine, Issue 10), The Routine (OAC Funded), Fairchild (Driftwood Theatre).

Select intimacy projects include; Dating Unlocked (Border2Border Entertainment), Rocky Horror Picture Show (Kordazone Theatre), Jesus Christ Superstar (Sheridan College), and Portia’s Julius Caesar (University of Waterloo).

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. In 2023 he was named Laureate of the prestigious Siminovitch Prize in Theatre for his groundbreaking work in playwriting. He currently teaches playwriting at the University of Toronto and works extensively in the Asian Canadian community as an artist and an advocate.

Emil’s wide-ranging works for the stage, screen and print have been honoured at home and internationally and translated into French, Italian, Hebrew, Slovak, Russian, Japanese, Turkish and Danish.

Emil’s stage work for the young and the once-were-young include Mourning Dove, Bluenose, Derailed, The Book of Ashes, Beneath the Banyan Tree and an adaptation of Edward the ‘Crazy Man’ for Workman Arts.  “St. Louis was a better place simply because this play was happening here,” a critic wrote of the U.S. premiere of Hana’s Suitcase, a celebrated adaptation of the beloved Holocaust book by Karen Levine. In addition to two national tours, Hana’s Suitcase has been staged in St. Louis, Seattle, Chicago and Lexington.

His stage adaptation of The Boy in the Moon, Ian Brown’s memoir about raising his disabled son, was a Dora Mavor Moore Award finalist for Outstanding New Play.  The Toronto premiere at Crow’s Theatre was honoured as one of the Top Ten Productions of 2018 by The Globe and Mail, and selected by former critic Robert Cushman as one of his Personal Bests from a Decade Theatre (2010-2019).

Emil’s first crack at a musical was writing the libretto and co-writing the lyrics for The Hockey Sweater: A Musical, based on Roch Carrier’s beloved classic.  He worked with composer/lyricist Jonathan Monro and director Donna Feore on an acclaimed adaptation that premiered at the Segal Centre, followed by a run at the NAC in 2018 that was heralded as one of the best productions of the year by The Ottawa Citizen.

Emil is currently adapting By Chance Alone, Max Eisen’s acclaimed memoir, for Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, where he was playwright in residence.

Photo by Gary Stein

Erin Shields is a Canadian playwright best known for radical adaptations of classical texts which bring neglected female characters centre stage. Her additional text for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at The Stratford Festival gives a voice to silenced Hero at the climax of the play. Queen Goneril, which premiered at Soulpepper Theatre in rep with King Lear, centres Lear’s stifled daughters as they contend for power in a world that insists they remain powerless. Erin’s illuminating and hilarious adaptation of Paradise Lost (Stratford Festival), won the Quebec Writers Federation Prize for Playwriting. And her harrowing tragedy about sexual violence, If We Were Birds, won the Governor General’s Award for playwriting.

Other plays include: Jane Eyre (Citadel Theatre), Piaf/Dietrich (Mirvish Productions/Segal Centre), Beautiful Man (Factory Theatre), The Lady from the Sea (The Shaw Festival), The Millennial Malcontent and Soliciting Temptation (Tarragon Theatre) and Instant (Geordie Theatre). Upcoming: Ransacking Troy (Stratford Festival).

Erin’s plays are published by Playwrights Canada Press and you can read more about upcoming projects on her website – www.erinshields.ca.

Debbie Patterson is a Winnipeg playwright, director and actor. Trained at the National Theatre School of Canada, she is a founding member of Shakespeare in the Ruins (SIR), served as Theatre Ambassador for Winnipeg’s Cultural Capital year, and as Artistic Director of the Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba. She was the Carol Shields Writer in Residence 2012 at the University of Winnipeg and Playwright in Residence at Theatre Projects Manitoba in 2013/14. She served as Artistic Associate at Prairie Theatre Exchange (PTE) from 2012 to 2018 and was a member of the PTE Playwrights Unit. She was a member of the Stratford Festival Acting Company in 2023. 

She was honoured with the United Nations Platform for Action Committee’s 2014 Activist Award and the Winnipeg Arts Council Making a Mark Award in 2017. She was twice shortlisted for the Gina Wilkinson Prize. She is the matriarch of a family of artists. She is a proud advocate for disability justice through her work as founding and current Artistic Director of Sick + Twisted Theatre.  

She lives a wheelchair-enabled life in Winnipeg and in a cabin on the shore of Lake Winnipeg with her partner and collaborator, Arne MacPherson.