Gabriel Calderón is a playwright, actor and director. He has been active in Uruguayan theatre since 2001 when his first premiere, ‘Más vale solo’ was awarded Best Play. Since then, he has written more than twenty plays that have performed in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru), Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany and France) and the United States.

Calderón premiered and directed “Historia de un jabalí o algo de Ricardo” , at the Teatro de La Abadía in Madrid, a production of Temporada Alta 2020 and Grec 2020-Festival de Barcelona, which was called one of the best plays of 2020 by ‘La Vanguardia’.

He completed his training in Spain (Fundación Carolina, 2004) and England (International Residency at the Royal Court Theatre in London, 2009). He was a member of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab (New York) and artist-in-residence at the Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry (Paris) between 2011 and 2013.

Member of the National System of Art Creators of Mexico. As an actress, she has participated in more than sixty works under the direction of renowned directors. Her work is published by publishers in Mexico, Spain and Argentina. She has been awarded by national and international institutions. “Mestiza Power”, from her authorship, is part of the didactic anthology of Mexican theater and in 2011 she receives a recognition from the government of the state of Yucatan, for its five hundred performances. Her theater has been presented in important forums and festivals in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Spain, Germany and the United States. In 2011, she received recognition from the Human Rights Commission of Yucatan for his social work through theater.

Valeria Loera (Chihuahua, Chih. Mexico, 1993) Playwright and actress
As an actress, she has participated in more than twenty works, obtaining a couple of distinctions for her work in the productions: “La infancia de Luna” (2011) and “Scarlett” (2009).

His playwriting has been published in various nationally renowned media, including: The Economic Culture Fund (FCE), Tierra Adentro, Alas y Raíces, Paso de Gato, El Programa Editorial Chihuahua (PECH) and Sangre Ediciones among others.
Some of her famous titles are: Elephant (2018), Kepler Planet or Useless Data (2019), Violence! (2022), The Adventures of Little Moser (2020) and Los locos de Alcalá (2023), among others.

In 2020 she was the playwright selected to represent Mexico in the 5th Cycle of Playwriting written and directed by women, organized by INBAL. She was the winner of the Gerardo Mancebo del Castillo National Young Playwriting Award in its twentieth edition, in the same way, in 2022 she was awarded the Chihuahua Prize for Literature “Vanguardia en Artes y Ciencias”.

María and Paula Marull are twin sisters, playwrights, directors and actresses. Their works have a record number of audiences and permanence on the Argentine scene, translated and performed in different parts of the world. Their plays La Pilarcita, Yo no duermo la siesta, Hidalgo, Vuelve, and El dia Perfecto, have garnered numerous nominations and awards across Argentina and Uruguay.

Together they created “Espacios Gemelos” (Twin Spaces), an intervention for the FIBA Abasto Marathon 2019, “The Glass Woman”, for the Interficciones cycle in Sagai 2019, “Rosita’s Dream”, at La casa del teatro for FIBA 2020. “Lo que el río hace, the Documentary” for the Hybrid Modes cycle of the Teatro San Martín 2020.

“Lo que el río hace”, the play, made for the CTBA, won the RFI award, Radio Cultura France 2022, and the EEBA School of Spectators Award 2022 among others.

Marianella Morena is a playwright, director, lecturer and columnist. Within the Uruguayan scene, she’s one of the artists with the highest international acclaim. Her work is programmed and shown in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, the United States, Spain, Germany, France, Paraguay, Chile and Mexico. She is involved in research in Uruguay, Argentina, North America, Italy, France and Cuba. Marianella works with classical plays around personal and political themes, in search of truthfulness. She exposes issues and uses the economic crisis to develop her own language, which she herself calls ‘the capitalisation of adversity’. Concerned with the current context and times, Marianella creates political projects in which she puts social, gender, and Latin American issues in the limelight. She has received awards and recognition from the Molière Prize, the Cultural Centre of Spain, the University of Buenos Aires, the Argentinian ACE Critics Awards, and the Uruguayan public broadcaster.

Actress and playwright, Bachelor of Performing Arts from the Universidad Mayor.

She has worked as an actress from 1996 to the present, collaborating with different companies and directors.

In the year 2000, she ventured into Dramaturgy in the workshop of the playwright Juan Radrigán. From then on, she trained with various playwrights and screenwriters in Chile and abroad. Along with the company La Huella Teatro, she has premiered more than ten dramatic texts such as Chajnantor, Mirar Hacia Atrás, Baile Ausente de un Arcángel, Wukong, El gran viaje del Rey Mono, among others. In 2017 she collaborates as a playwright with the Swiss Company Collectife Alternance Théàtre with the play Patria / Kamikaze.

Her works Las decapitadas (2003) and Pieza de ratas (2017) received the Municipal Prize of Santiago at the Gabriela Mistral Literary Games.

Theater director, playwright, actress and university professor. Master in Advanced Studies in Spanish and Latin American Literature. U. Barcelona. Bachelor of Theater Acting U. ARCIS. Diploma in Theater Direction U. Finis Terrae. Founder of the La Malinche Theater Company (Chile). She has written and directed the works “Corral ajeno”, “El Abismo de los pájaros”, “Requiem”, “Who will feed the pigeons or the obscene shyness of your lap”, among others.

Director, playwright and theater teacher. Cultural Manager and Curator.

He is the founding artistic director of the venue and company Banfield Teatro Ensamble, one of the most exciting Argentinean independent theater companies that has emerged in the country in the past decade. He has worked as coordinator of the art program at Ezeiza prison in Buenos Aires.

Some of his most important texts are: “El loco y la camisa”, “El declive”, “Solo llamé para decirte que te amo”, “La Mujer que soy” and “Los perros”. Apart from directing his own plays, he has staged more than 60 pieces in the Americas and Europe, participating of festivals such as Hispano in Miami, Santiago a Mil in Chile, Iberoamericano de Cádiz and Internacional de Tarragona in Spain, Gulbenkian Próximo Futuro de Lisboa in Portugal, Sens Interdits de Lyon France and VIE de Modena in Italy. His texts have been premiered by local casts in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Uruguay and Spain.

Mercedes Bátiz-Benét (she/her) is a Mexican-born multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and award-winning director. Known for her emotionally potent and surrealist style, she has written and directed numerous plays that have toured nationally and internationally. Mercedes is the artistic director of Puente Theatre where her mission is to advocate for the inclusion, representation, and development of immigrant, IBPOC, and culturally diverse voices.

Alice Abracen (she/her) is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and video game writer based in Montreal. Her work has been featured with McGill Opera’s Beta Lab, Boca Del Lupo’s Red Phone Project, Alumnae Theatre (Toronto) Underlings Theatre (Boston), the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club, the Montreal Fringe, the New Words Festival of NTS, and two Women Playwrights International Conferences (Cape Town & Santiago). Her libretto The Chair, co-written with composer Maria Atallah, was a winner of the inaugural Mecenat Musica Prix Trois Femmes. The Covenant, winner of the 2017 Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition, premiered at the Segal Centre’s Studio Space in 2022 and What Rough Beast was recently featured as Centaur Theatre’s Brave New Looks in 2023. Alice is one of the founders of Theatre Ouest End.

Sharon Bala’s bestselling debut novel, The Boat People, won the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. It was a finalist for Canada Reads 2018, the 2018 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. The Boat People is on sale worldwide with translations on the shelves or forthcoming in French, German, Arabic, and Turkish. In 2017 Sharon won the Writers’ Trust/ McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story “Butter Tea at Starbucks” and had a second story on the long-list.  She is a member of The Port Authority, a St. John’s writing group. Visit her online at sharonbala.com.

Keith Barker is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario. He is a playwright, actor, and director from Northwestern Ontario. Keith is the Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program at the Stratford Festival, and the former Artistic Director at Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto. He is the winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Playwrights Guild’s Carol Bolt Award for best new play. Keith was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for English Drama in 2018 for his play, This Is How We Got Here. He received a Saskatchewan and Area Theatre Award for Excellence in Playwriting for his play, The Hours That Remain, as well as a Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change. 

Tara Beagan is a proud Ntlaka’pamux and Irish “Canadian” halfbreed. She is cofounder/director of ARTICLE 11 with Andy Moro and based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary.) Their feature film Reckoning will premiere in 2023.Beagan served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts from February 2011 to December 2013. Beagan has been in residence at Cahoots Theatre, NEPA, the National Arts Centre, Berton House, and most recently Prairie Theatre Exchange. Seven of her 35 plays are published. Two plays have received Toronto’s Dora Award nominations, one win. In 2020, Honour Beat won the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama. Recent writing includes Rise, Red River for PTE (premiering in 2024 with PTE, Theatre Circle Moliere and A11), Nice White Lady for Necessary Angel, and Ride or Die for Sunny Drake Productions, produced by Downstage.

Beagan is a Dora and Betty nominated actor, recently appearing in Theatre Calgary’s Little Women as well as Vertigo’s The Extractionist. Most recently Beagan was nominated for directing her play The Ministry of Grace for Making Treaty 7. Along with protégé Joelle Peters, Beagan is the 2020 laureate of the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre.

Leanna Brodie is an award-winning playwright and actor whose work has been performed across Canada and the US. In 2015, Brodie collaborated with New Zealand composer Anthony Young on Ulla’s Odyssey, the Flourish Prize–winning opera which toured the UK for two years with OperaUpClose.

Brodie is also a leading translator of contemporary Québécois and Franco-Canadian playwrights. Recent premieres have included Wildfire (Factory Theatre, Toronto: 2022 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play, Director, and Production); Joe Jack et John’s Violette (Espace Libre/PuSh Festival); Mohsen El Gharbi’s Omi Mouna (Impact Festival/Infinithéâtre); Anaïs Pellin’s Clementine (Carousel Theatre/PHT, Vancouver); Fanny Britt’s Benevolence (Ruby Slippers Theatre/Pacific Theatre); and Rébecca Déraspe’s I Am William (Stratford Festival and Théâtre le Clou). Benevolence will be staged at Ottawa’s Great Canadian Theatre Company this season, and The Weight of Ants – Brodie’s translation of David Paquet’s Governor General’s Award-winning Le poids des fourmis – will be published by Scirocco Drama this fall.

Brodie recently served a one-year term as Assistant Professor (Playwriting) at UBC’s School of Creative Writing. With co-writer Jovanni Sy, she is working on Salesman in China, a commission from the Stratford Festival. She is also working on her new play Biological as part of Boca del Lupo’s SLAM! programme.

Bridget Canning writes fiction. Her debut novel, The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes, was selected as a finalist for the 2017 BMO Winterset Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, the NL Fiction Award, was long listed for the Dublin International Literary Award and has been optioned for film. Her second novel, Some People’s Children, was published with Breakwater Books in the spring of 2020. She is the recipient of the 2018 ArtsNL Emerging Artist Award.
Bridget holds an MA in Creative Writing from Memorial University and a Masters in Literacy Education from Mount Saint Vincent University. She balances her writing career with teaching Communications at the College of the North Atlantic. 
She was raised on a sheep farm in Highlands, Newfoundland and currently lives in St. John’s. www.bridgetcanning.com

Ginny Collins is a Winnipeg-based playwright who has worked with both English and French theatres. Most recently, Ginny’s play The Flats was produced by Prairie Theatre Exchange, was translated into French (Les Flats), and produced at Théâtre Cercle Molière. Ginny’s plays The Good Daughter, Terroristas and The Propeller Moment have been published by Scirocco Drama in anthologies.

Ivan Coyote is a writer and storyteller. Born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, they are the author of thirteen books, the creator of four films, six stage shows, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Coyote’s books have won the ReLit Award, been named a Stonewall Honour Book, been long-listed for Canada Reads, and been shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize for non-fiction, and the Governor General’s Award for non-fiction twice. In 2017 Ivan was given an honorary Doctor of Laws from Simon Fraser University. Coyote’s stories grapple with the complex and intensely personal topics of gender identity, family, class, and queer liberation, but always with a generous heart, and a quick wit. Ivan’s stories manage to handle both the hilarious and the historical with reverence and compassion, and remind us all of our own fallible and imperfect humanity, while at the same time inspiring us to change the world. Ivan’s 13th book, Care Of, was released in June 2021 by McClelland and Stewart.

An inventor, creator and entrepreneur, Jay’s imagination for the what, how and why of theatre defies conventional boundaries . During his tenure, the company has won the peer-assessed Alcan Performing Arts Award, and several Jesse Richardson Theatre Awards including seven nominations for the Critic’s Choice Award for Innovation and the Patrick O’Neill Award for best anthology with Plays2Perform@Home. Jay is a passionate set and video designer with Jessie Richardson Awards in both of those categories as well as a published playwright including a contribution to Boca del Lupo’s Red Phone project. His artistry is one of innovation and daring and his one man show, PHOTOG. featured interactive video, stunt rigging and verbatim text, touring to World Stage, Prismatic, Festival Trans Amerique and PuSh. Having served as President on the national board of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Jay also has special interest in creative space making including as co-founder of celebrated colocation space PL1422, co-founder of the Granville Island Theatre District. Happiest when he is tinkering in his studio with collaborators from a diverse range of disciplines and backgrounds, the impact of Jay’s influence is quiet yet profound.

Sherry J Yoon, is currently the Artistic Director of Boca del Lupo in Vancouver BC.  As theatre director her passion for creating new performance through collaborative pursuits has enable her to create work in theatres, intimate performance installations and large spectacle site specific work.  Through co creation, collaboration, partnerships and commissions she has premiered and toured festivals and venues across Canada, Europe and Latin America.  During Sherry’s tenure the company has received numerous awards including the Alcan Performing Arts Award, Jessie Richardson awards, and the Critics Choice Award for Innovation.  She is currently working on an interactive installation about climate change and our relationship to the guilt and isolation that people carry, involving the audience charging a battery on a stationary bicycle.  Sherry also participates in multiple local and national arts advisories, and has launched the 3.7% – and advocacy group to support emerging and established BIPOC women and non binary artists in leadership, and most recently Stop Asian Hate an initiative that has galvanized Asian Canadian Leadership in the performing arts across Canada. She is also a freelance director and has recently been honored as a finalist for the prestigious Siminovitch Award for directing.

Susanna Fournier is an award-winning Canadian theatre-maker, actor, and educator. Her main crush is constructing new texts for live performance and visioning interdisciplinary productions. Her work is rowdy, joyous, and sometimes “impossible” – especially lately since her latest project, Always Still the Dawn, a double bill of new plays set to premiere at Canadian Stage in Toronto, was one of the many projects rendered “impossible” by the COVID 19 pandemic. That’s ok though, for her, art is anything but easy and certainly never predictable. In 2018/19, her company, PARADIGM productions, launched her critically acclaimed trilogy, The Empire, across three different Toronto venues and as a podcast series you can listen to at www.empiretrilogy.com. She’s a graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada and Generator’s Artist Producer Training Program. She’s on faculty at both Randolph College for the Performing Arts and Armstrong Acting Studios where she teaches empowered, mindful, and playful approaches to performance. In writing she explores the space between who we are, who we have been, and who we want to become. Her work is trauma-informed, heart and spirit forward because she thinks tenderness can change our world and wonders if you do too.  www.susannafournier.com

Shauntay Grant is an author, poet, playwright, and multimedia artist who lives and works in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). A multidisciplinary artist with professional degrees in creative writing, music, and journalism, she “creates artworks that are engaging and accessible, but also challenging, rigorous, and informed by deep research” (The Royal Society of Canada). She is the author of The Bridge, published by Playwrights Canada Press and winner of a Robert Merrit Award for Outstanding New Play by a Nova Scotian, and the editor of the forthcoming anthology From The Ashes: Six Solo Plays. Her work has been commissioned by Boca Del Lupo (Red Phone Project), Obsidian Theatre (21 Black Futures), Eastern Front Theatre (Micro Digitals Creation Project), Against the Grain Theatre (Identity: A Song Cycle), and others. Shauntay is the author of several books for children including Sandy Toes: A Summer Adventure (Abrams Appleseed, 2023) My Fade Is Fresh (Penguin Random House, 2022) and Africville which won the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Awards. Her honours include a Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Writing and Publishing from the Canada Council for the Arts, and a Poet of Honour prize from the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. She is a former poet laureate for the City of Halifax, and she teaches creative writing at Dalhousie University.

Ryan Griffith is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada (2007). His play Fortune Of Wolves was recently published by Playwrights Canada Press. His short play Shepody, Rage and Wolfe was featured as part of the National Elevator Project Plays produced by Theatre Yes in Edmonton and Halifax, and his original plays Returning Fire and A Brief History of the Maritimes and Everywhere Else, as well as his adaptation of Alistair MacLeod’s The Boat have recently been produced by Theatre New Brunswick.  He has served as a board member for both PARC (Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre) as well as the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Currently, Ryan is the Artistic Director for the Next Folding Theatre Company in Fredericton.

Karen Hines’ multi-prize-winning plays, productions, performances combine such disparate elements as magical realism, pink-brand feminism and environmental disarray. Karen is a two- time finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Drama and a 2020 finalist for the Siminovitch Prize. Her solo plays and ‘little’ films featuring her character ‘Pochsy’ have traveled the globe. Hines has directed and collaborated with fellow artists at venues such as One Yellow Rabbit, Joe’s Pub (Public Theatre), Astor Place Off-Broadway, Tarragon, Videofag, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, NAC, and has created original works for Boca del Lupo. Her All the Little Animals I Have Eaten was translated for Jamais Lu 2022 (Mishka Lavigne), and the real estate horror Crawlspace continues to micro-theatres across Canada in French and English. Hines is a Gemini and Dora Award-winning performer. Her solo Crawlspace is being adapted as screenplay, and is now a CBC podcast (PlayMe; Radio One). Her newest show Pochsy IV premiered in January 2023 (High Performance Rodeo) and will soon tour to multiple cities.

Hiro Kanagawa is a Vancouver-based actor and writer perhaps best-known for his 200-plus film and television roles ranging from Best in Show and art house shorts to hit shows like Smallville, Altered Carbon and Star Trek: Discovery. Behind the camera he was story editor on several critically-acclaimed Canadian television series: Da Vinci’s Inquest, Da Vinci’s City Hall, Intelligence and Blackstone. As a playwright, he received the 2017 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Drama for his play, Indian Arm. His latest play, an adaptation of Mark Sakamoto’s best-selling memoir, Forgiveness, premiered in January, 2023 in an Arts Club Theatre / Theatre Calgary co-production directed by renowned director Stafford Arima. A long-time collaborator with Boca del Lupo, Hiro’s other works with the company include plays2perform@home, the Micro Performance piece Azano and co-writing the full-length play Hold Your Head Tight.

Kevin Loring is an accomplished Canadian playwright, actor and director and was the winner of the Governor General’s Award for English Language Drama for his outstanding play, Where the Blood Mixes in 2009. The play explores the intergenerational effects of the residential school system. It toured nationally and was presented at the National Arts Centre in 2010, when Loring was serving as the NAC’s Playwright in Residence.

A Nlaka’pamux from the Lytton First Nation in British Columbia, Loring created the Songs of the Land project in 2012 in partnership with five separate organizations in his home community. The project explores 100-year-old audio recordings of songs and stories of the N’lakap’amux People. Loring has written two new plays based on his work with the community including Battle of the Birds, about domestic violence and power abuse, and The Boy Who Was Abandoned, about youth and elder neglect.

A versatile artist and leader Loring has served as the co-curator of the Talking Stick Festival, as Artist in Residence at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre, as Artistic Director of the Savage Society in Vancouver, as a Documentary Producer of Canyon War: The Untold Story, and as the Project Leader/Creator, and Director of the Songs of the Land project in his home community of Lytton First Nation. 

Shawn is an actor and playwright. His plays have been produced at the Arts Club, Touchstone Theatre, and Pacific Theatre. He has won two Jessie Awards for playwriting for World’s Greatest Guy and Prodigal Son. Shawn has been the Program Leader for the LEAP Playwriting Intensive for Young Writers at the Arts Club for over 10 years. He loves to write plays and to be part of the development process with fellow playwrights.

Janet Munsil is a Victoria-based playwright and the author of more than a dozen plays produced internationally, including Ugly Duchess, Be Still, Circus Fire, Influence, I Have Seen Beautiful Jim Key, and That Elusive Spark. She completed her MFA in Writing at the University of Victoria. She is also a theatre director. She acknowledges her debt to, and respect for, the Duwamish, Nuu-chah-nulth, Hupačasath, Esquimalt, Songhees, Stoney, Sylix, and Nez Perce peoples, upon whose land she has lived.

Omari Newton is an award-winning professional actor, writer, director and producer. As a writer, his original Hip Hop Theater piece Sal Capone has received critical acclaim and multiple productions, including a run at Canada’s National Arts Center. Omari and his wife, fellow professional playwright Amy Lee Lavoie, received a silver commissions from The Arts Club Theatre to co-write a new play: Redbone Coonhound. A bold and innovative satirical comedy that confronts instances of systemic racism in the past, present and future. Omari co-directed the first in a series of rolling world premieres at The Arts Club Theatre in October of 2022. The play is set to open at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, followed by a run at Imago Theatre in Montreal. The husband and wife duo have also just completed “Black Fly,” a satirical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus that centers on Aaron and Lavinia. Newton’s work in Speakeasy Theatre’s production of Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment earned him a 2017-2018 Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor, as well as a nomination for Best Direction. He has recently completed directing critically acclaimed productions of “The Mountaintop” by Katori Hall, and “Pass Over” by Antoinette Nwandu. Notable film & TV credits include: Lucas Ingram on Showcase’s Continuum, Larry Summers on Blue Mountain State and lending his voice to the Black Panther in multiple animated projects (Marvel). Most recently, Omari has a recurring role as Nate on Corner Gas (the animated series) and a recurring role as Corvus of Netflix’s hit new animated series The Dragon Prince.

Yvette has written plays (The Unplugging, The Birds, Annie Mae’s Movement), libretti (Shanawdithit, Sophia), plays for film (Katharsis), plays for audio (Flag, You Can’t Get There From Here, Lache Pas La Patate), and a whack of short pieces for Sum Theatre’s Last Sunday, Short Cuts Festival, and Boca del Lupo. Boca pieces include Expedition, Red Phone, and The Fifth Setting (Plays2Perform@Home, Prairie Box).  She is also a director and a dramaturg. She is also currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy.

Ellen Peterson is a playwright, dramaturg, actor, and teacher. She is a graduate of the University of Winnipeg. Ellen’s plays The Brink and The Eight Tiny Reindeer of the Apocalypse premiered at Prairie Theatre Exchange (2013) and Theatre Projects Manitoba (2012) respectively. Other plays include Branta Canadensis, Learning to Drive, and The Blanket Show, and The Goose. Her adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility premiered at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in October 2018.

Sharon Thesen is a poet, editor, and writer. She received her MA degree from Simon Fraser University, taught English and Creative Writing at Capilano College, and was a professor of Creative Writing at UBC Okanagan.  She is the author of nine books of poetry, the most recent two Oyama Pink Shale and The Receiver.

Metis/Ojibway playwright and author Ian Ross was born in McCreary, Manitoba in 1968 and currently lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film and Theatre. Ian Ross has written for theatre, film, television and radio. Ross’s play “Heart of a Distant Tribe” was published in the Manitoba anthology A Map of the Senses: 20 Years of Manitoba Plays, edited by Rory Runnells (Scirocco). His play fareWel, which garnered him the 1997 Governor General Award for Drama, is a dark comedy about Native life on the fictional Partridge Crop Reserve.

A playwright, actor and theatremaker, Marcus’ fifteen or so plays have been produced in multiple languages in twenty countries across North America, Europe and Asia. They include Winners and Losers, King Arthur’s Night, How Has My Love Affected You?, Adrift, The In-Between, Ali and Ali and the aXes of Evil, Jabber and A Line in the Sand. Marcus is the recipient of Canada’s largest theatre award, the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre, for his body of work as a playwright and mentor, as well as Berlin, Germany’s Ikarus Prize, the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Chalmers’ Canadian Play Award, the Seattle Times Footlight award, the Vancouver Critics’ Innovation award (three times), the Canada Council Staunch-Lynton Award, and an Honorary Fellowship from Douglas College. Marcus’ directing credits include Charlie Demers’ Leftovers (Neworld/PuSh), Porno Death Cult (Tara Cheyenne Performance/High Performance Rodeo) and Sultans of the Street (Carousel).

Bruce Gibbons Fell (Toronto) is a Chilean award-winning playwright and translator. His plays and translations have been presented in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Cuba, the US, and the UK. His theatre company, SO MUCH DRAMA, showcased his work in Toronto and developed his play The Communist Manifesto for Children at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Bruce is currently Director of New Play Development at Interdram (Santiago, Chile).

Mishka Lavigne (she/her) is a playwright, screenwriter and literary translator based in Ottawa/Gatineau. Her plays have been produced and developed in Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany, Australia, Haiti and the United States. Her play Havre was awarded the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Prize. Her play Copeaux, a movement-based poetic creation piece with director Éric Perron premiered in Ottawa in March 2020 and was also awarded the Governor General’s Literary Prize in 2021 as well as the Prix littéraire Jacques-Poirier. Albumen, her first play written in English received the Prix Rideau Award for Outstanding New Creation in 2019 and the QWF Playwriting Award in 2020. Her play Shorelines was recently produced in Ottawa by TACTICS and directed by Nicholas Leno.
Mishka is currently working on a bilingual opera libretto with Montreal composer Tim Brady and on four new creations in French, as well as on some translation and screenwriting projects.