Depuis sa sortie de l’École nationale de théâtre du Canada en 2008, Mani Soleymanlou est un acteur très actif et reconnu sur la scène montréalaise. En 2011, il fonde Orange Noyée, sa compagnie de création avec laquelle il écrit, met en scène, et joue. Son triptyque identitaire : UN, DEUX, TROIS fait le tour du Canada et lui vaut un profil dans le New York Times. Mani brille au cinéma dans des projets variés tels que La femme de mon frère de Monia Chokri ou Une langue universelle de Matthew Rankin. On le voit au petit écran dans C’est comme ça que je t’aime, La faille, Lâcher prise, et Avant le crash, une série Radio-Canada dans laquelle il tient un des rôles principaux. Depuis 2021, il assure la direction artistique du Théâtre français du Centre National des Arts à Ottawa.

Née en Égypte où elle passe son enfance, Maryse arrive à Montréal à l’âge de 9 ans où elle apprend l’anglais en regardant Happy Days. En 1991, le directeur du Quat’Sous, Pierre Bernard, non content d’en faire son adjointe, lui offre également la chance d’effectuer sa première traduction, Traces d’étoiles, de Cindy Lou Johnson. La pièce est couronnée d’un tel succès qu’elle marque le début d’une carrière aussi inespérée qu’inattendue. 

Depuis, elle a effectué plus de 70 traductions. Son travail a contribué à faire connaître au public francophone québécois de nombreux auteurs canadiens, tels que Daniel Brooks, John Mighton, Morris Panych, Erin Shields et George F. Walker. Elle a également traduit des auteurs américains, britanniques, écossais et irlandais : Christopher Durang, Margaret Edson, David Greig, David Hare, David Mamet, Douglas Maxwell, Harold Pinter, Philip Ridley et Simon Stephens. Ses traductions sont célébrées pour être fidèles à l’original, tout en faisant une utilisation efficace mais instentieuse de l’idiome québécois.

Son travail sur la série Motel de passage, de George F. Walker, reçoit en 2000 le Masque de la traduction et est en lice pour un prix du Gouverneur Général, mais c’est sa traduction de Toxique ou L’incident dans l’autobus, de Greg MacArthur, qui lui vaut cet honneur en 2011.

Linda Gaboriau has been active in Canadian and Quebec theatre as a consultant, dramaturg and translator. She has translated some 60 plays, including the works of some of Quebec’s most prominent playwrights: Rene-Daniel Dubois, Michel Marc Bouchard, Normand Chaurette, Daniel Danis, and Michel Tremblay. Her other acclaimed translations include works by Marie-Claire Blais and Pierre Morency. She worked at Montreal’s Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD), taught at the National Theatre School, was theatre critic for the Montreal Gazette, and hosted and produced radio shows for the CBC. She has won three Chalmers Awards, three Dora Mavor Moore Awards, and a Governor General’s Award for Literary Translation. 

Mary Vingoe is a Canadian playwright, actor, and theatre director. Vingoe was one of the co-founders of Canadian feminist theatre company Nightwood Theatre and later co-founded Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro and Eastern Front Theatre in Halifax. From 2002 to 2007, Vingoe was artistic director of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. Vingoe is an Officer of the Order of Canada and received the Portia White Prize. Her play Refuge was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General’s Award for English-language drama at the 2016 Governor General’s Awards. 

Kathryn Shaw is a Canadian director, actor, and writer living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. From 1985 to 2020 she was the Artistic Director of Studio 58. 

Shaw graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in dramatic art from Whitman College and a Master of Fine Arts in acting from the Columbia University School of the Arts in New York City. Following graduation, she lived in Victoria, British Columbia for a short while before eventually moving to Vancouver.

Over the past few decades, she has directed some of Canada’s most prestigious theatre companies. She has taught acting for professional and community groups across British Columbia, Winnipeg, Halifax, and has also been a guest instructor for the National Theatre School in Montreal, Quebec. Shaw has been on the Theatre BC committee, a parent organization to approximately 80 community theatre groups across British Columbia, as an adjudicator and dramaturge.

Christopher Newton was a Canadian director and actor, who served as artistic director of the Shaw Festival from 1980 to 2002.

Newton performed with the Canadian Players, at the Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Vancouver Playhouse and the Stratford Festival. At Stratford, he played such roles as ‘Oberon’ in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and ‘Aramis’ in The Three Musketeers. He also appeared on Broadway in Peter Shaffer’s The Private Ear.

In 1968, Newton founded Theatre Calgary where he served as artistic director until 1971. In 1973, he was appointed artistic director of the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company. There, he founded the Playhouse Acting School with his friend and mentor Powys Thomas.

John Murrell, was an American-born Canadian playwright. Born in Lubbock, Texas, Murrell moved to Alberta after graduating from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas with a BFA in 1968. He moved to Canada to avoid the draft, studying at the University of Calgary. In 2002 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and awarded the Alberta Order of Excellence. In 2008, he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts for which he was the subject of a National Film Board of Canada animated short by Cam Christiansen entitled The Real Place.

Nicola Lipman is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, Banff Centre for the Arts, and the National Theatre School of Canada. In 1969, shortly after her graduation from NTS, she played the role of Susan in the Vancouver PlayhouseGeorge Ryga’s controversial counter-culture play, Grass and Wild Strawberries.

Since then, Nicola Lipman has performed a wide range of plays in theatres across Canada, including: Rabbit Hole at Alberta Theatre Projects; Hecuba at Blackbird Theatre; December Man by Colleen Murphy, at Canadian Stage and Citadel Theatre; Scorched and Humble Boy for Tarragon Theatre; and Shirley Valentine for the Atlantic Theatre Festival. She is the recipient of four Jessie Richardson Awards for outstanding performance. In 2012, she was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.