Playwrights in Residence

Imagine the Globe without Shakespeare, or the Comédie Française without Molière, or the Tarragon Theatre without Judith Thompson! The best theatre has always been forged with a playwright as an active and central participant. This season we inaugurate our own Playwrights in Residence programme with two very exciting and distinguished writers. During their residencies, each writer will participate in the day-to-day activities of the company, participate in youth and education outreach activities, conduct a professional writers workshop, as well as work on a new play especially created for the NAC. It is an honour to have them with us.

This residency was made possible through the assistance of the Theatre Section and the Aboriginal Arts Secretariat of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Daniel David Moses
Daniel, a registered Delaware Indian, was born in 1952 and grew up on a farm on the Six Nations lands located on the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario. He holds an Honours B.A. from York University and an M.F.A. from the University of British Columbia. His plays for the stage include: Almighty Voice and his Wife, Coyote City, The Indian Medicine Shows (comprising The Moon and Dead Indians and Angel of the Medicine Show), Brébeuf's Ghost, and The Dreaming Beauty. For Coyote City, Daniel was a finalist nominated for the 1991 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama. In 2004, Daniel accepted invitations to the Adelaide Festival in South Australia and the Neva Book Forum in St. Petersburg in the Russian Republic. He was also Poet in Residence for Myty, Ktere Nas Spojuji/ Myths That Unite Us, the Prague-Toronto-Manitoulin Island Theatre Project with productions in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Toronto, Manitoulin Island and Montreal, Canada. He teaches at Queen's University Drama Department in Kingston, Ontario and pursues independent writing projects. During his residency Daniel will be working on The Undiscovered Country, a sequel to Brébeuf's Ghost, as well as exploring an original adaptation of Thomas Heywood's 1730 adventure romance Fair Maid of the West.

"An artist of awesome imaginative scope and a Shakespearean richness of emotion and invention, Mr. Moses is the best-kept secret of Canadian drama of the last two decades. With his unerring instinct for compelling stories, his great skill in creating living, vibrant, wholly credible characters, his expansive social vision informed by a wide-ranging intellect and deeply held personal convictions, and his immense poetic gifts, Mr. Moses extends the possibilities of dramatic writing."
- NADINE SIVAK, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

"We are living in a culture that wants us to think in the now and in the material world... But our imagination allows us to go to places that may not be real, but are probably necessary for our humanity. I hope that I'm getting in contact with some of that."
- DANIEL DAVID MOSES

Marie Clements Marie Clements is an award-winning Métis performer, playwright, director, and artistic director of urban ink productions. She is the author of ten plays including Burning Vision, The Unnatural and Accidental Women, and Urban Tattoo, all of which have been presented on some of the most prestigious stages for Canadian and international work including the Festival de Théâtre des Amériques (Urban Tattoo 2001, Burning Vision 2003) in Montreal, and The Magnetic North Festival (Burning Vision 2003) in Ottawa. Her work has garnered numerous awards including the 2004 Canada- Japan Literary Award (Burning Vision) and Jessie Richardson/New Play Centre Award (The Unnatural and Accidental Women 1999). Burning Vision also received six Jessie nominations and was shortlisted for the 2004 Govenor General's Literary Award and the George Ryga Literary Award. During her residency, Marie will be involved in a mentor program with aboriginal artists at the NAC, participating in youth and education activities, and attending production rehearsals for Copper Thunderbird, as well as working on a new piece.

"Marie pushes the confines of today's concept of theatre to an awe-inspiring degree… What the play does is give us a glimpse into the mind-boggling depth and range of native creativity and spiritual culture as well as tell the gut-wrenching story of a man who has at one time in his own culture been revered, but in our culture is on the street selling his paintings for the price of a beer… [This work] will be challenging to produce and breathtaking to watch - an artistic contribution worthy of attention."
J. MICHAEL, LITERARY MANAGER,WESTERN CANADA THEATRE

"Marie is a one-woman Wooster Group."
- PAULA DANCKERT, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, PLAYWRIGHTS' WORKSHOP MONTREAL

"No apologies for the inspiration the darkness lends to the expression, nor the light that comes with continual survival."
- MARIE CLEMENTS

Photos: Laird Mackintosh