2024 Women’s Caucus Events

Rebecca Burton (she/her): Bra d’Or recipient 2015. Rebecca was born and raised in Tkaronto, but she has since relocated to Vancouver Island.  She received the award for co-founding and leading Equity in Theatre (EIT), a now defunct, multi-stakeholder, three-pronged initiative that redressed the underrepresentation of women in the Canadian theatre industry (2014 – 2017). Working towards improved equity can be thankless work, often going unnoticed, so receiving the Bra d’Or Award meant the world to Rebecca, as it was the only accolade of its kind at that time. Rebecca continues to work toward greater pluralism as the Membership and Contracts Manager at the Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) and staff liaison to PGC’s Women’s Caucus, where she has launched projects such as SureFire and PLEDGE. For this work, in 2022, Rebecca was the recipient of a Dora Mavor Moore Ancillary Award: the Leonard McHardy and John Harvey Award for Outstanding Leadership in Administration in Theatre, Dance, and Opera in Toronto. Rebecca also works as an editor, educator, researcher, and occasional theatre practitioner. She has a BA from the University of Guelph, an MA from the University of Victoria, and PhD ABD status from University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. Rebecca authored the 2006 benchmark report, “Adding It Up: The Status of Women in Canadian Theatre,” she is the Editor of Long Story Short: A (Mostly) Ten-Minute Play Anthology (Playwrights Canada Press, 2016), and she has published various articles in the field.

Photo credit: Dahlia Katz

Marjorie Chan (she/her):  Bra d’Or recipient 2020. This award came in the middle of pandemic closures – when in-person and theatre in general was tinged with uncertainty and fear.  What a delight to be honoured by the Playwright’s Guild who conspired with Theatre Passe Muraille (TPM) staff to bring me to an in-person rehearsal to be acknowledged in person. It was an affirming and bright moment in challenging times.

Two of the female playwrights I have been proud to support through to production in subsequent years, both came out of a particularly motivated and productive playwrights’ unit comprised of all BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour) women. One of the first shows at TPM to welcome people back to the theatre was Our Place by Kanika Ambrose (a co-production with Cahoots Theatre), telling the struggle of undocumented women working here in Canada, which played to standing ovations and sold-out houses. The next year at TPM saw the moving premiere of Suvendrini Lena’s Rubble (co-produced with Aluna Theatre), inspired by the poetry of Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish; still one of the most powerful pieces of theatre I have been privileged to be a part of. These two extraordinary and relevant plays offer audiences space to witness and create dialogue.

It is my hope to continue to be able to champion such poignant and impactful work in the future.

Photo credit: Dahlia Katz

Beverley Cooper (she/her):  Bra d’Or recipient 2022. I was thrilled and honoured to be the 2022 recipient of the Bra d’Or Award. I was nominated by Marcia Johnson and Sally Stubbs who worked alongside me to create the CASA Award: an award that honours South African women playwrights. To be recognized for the work I have done as a volunteer has been very meaningful. The award seemed to say to me, “Keep going, you are on the right track, and you are making a difference.” I haven’t done the work of supporting women playwrights in order to receive an award, but it is very nice to be recognized by my peers for that work. Currently, I have two new plays that just opened: The Trials of Maggie Pollock at the Blyth Festival and Jim Watts: Girl Reporter at 4th Line Theatre. I really enjoy dramaturging emerging plays (freelance) and teaching playwriting (the Humber School for Writers). I also direct audio books for Penguin Random House. I have three plays in the works; a play about humour and the brain; a play with music (with Loreena McKennitt) for the Blyth Festival; and a very theatrical adaptation of the LM Montgomery novel, Emily of New Moon, which I am co-writing with Dave Carley.  Good work is never finished, and I would like to honour all the measures that theatre artists, producers, and directors are currently doing to support women, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming playwrights to get their plays in front of audiences. 

Photo credit: John Jarvis

Pamela Halstead (she/her): Bra d’Or recipient 2019. It was a great honour to be awarded the 2019 Bra d’Or Award. Working on the east coast, you can at times feel disconnected from the rest of Canada. It was a humbling thing to be nominated amongst so many fabulous colleagues, and then to receive an award voted on by playwrights from across the country. I am grateful to Natalie Meisner for the nomination and for the continued gift of her creative partnership. At the time I was awarded the Bra d’Or Award, I was the Artistic Director of Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC). Through this position I was able to support the work of many playwrights from across Atlantic Canada. I remained at PARC from 2017-2023 and continue to support PARC’s mission as a dramaturge and consultant. After leaving PARC, I served as the Interim Artistic Producer of Theatre Newfoundland Labrador from 2023-2024, leading them through a time of great change with a new facility, transition of leadership, and a restructuring of the organization. I was awarded the 2024 Robert Merritt Legacy Award for outstanding contribution to the professional theatre in Nova Scotia for my leadership and work with many organizations and individuals across the province. I continue to freelance as an actor, director, dramaturge, educator, and administrative consultant for myriad companies and projects across Atlantic Canada and beyond.

Photo credit: James MacLean

Marcia Johnson (she/her), panel moderator: Bra d’Or Award Instigator. Marcia Johnson is a Jamaican-born Toronto-based theatre artist who sometimes works in TV, film, and audiobooks. Her play, 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, the 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, Marcia appeared in the Thousand Islands Playhouse production of Serving Elizabeth and in the podcast version. She can also be heard in Keith Barker’s 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.

Photo Credit: Jo Haughton