Actress and playwright Mary-Lee Picknell is more than happy to conduct our interview in Franglais, that quintessentially Canadian mash-up of our two official languages. Born, raised, and based in Québec City, Picknell is fluently bilingual, and more. “I’ve always been a language enthusiast,” she explains. “When I was a teenager I used to play Scrabble online with strangers, and make friends in chat groups speaking English.” She studied English in high school and college, followed by German and Spanish – all this before attending the acting program at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec.
Multilingualism even shows up in her writing. The title of her first produced play, Heimat/Revenir, for which she recently won the Prix Littéraire de la ville de Québec, combines the German word for homeland with the French for ‘to return’ and features language as a plot point: when two strangers on a bus discover they both speak German, one invites the other to his brother’s wedding, where she pretends to be his German girlfriend. “It became their secret language,” Picknell explains, “…they can switch and nobody understands… but also for the audience, there are no subtitles, they have their very own intimate world.”
Picknell is drawn to themes of games and role-playing. “The different parts we play in real life inspire me,” she explains. She offers an example: she spent some time working at the rehab centre where her mother worked, “and I could see my mom acting with her colleagues how she was at work, versus when she was at home.” She’s fascinated by this mutability in the human character. “When I was younger, some people used to tell me I was a chameleon … I thought this meant I had no personality. And now today I’m like, no, I guess that’s useful when it comes to writing, you know?” She even has the almost untranslatable French word mouvance tattooed on her thigh: movement, influence, ebb and flow.
It’s all connected to being an actor, she figures: a job she’s had for the past sixteen years, though she’s currently taking a break to focus on teaching, and of course writing, via several commissions and for Les Hébertistes, the independent theatre company she has co-founded with a friend. “When I write, I’m acting it in my head. I think we are all acting in real life. This barista right here,” she enthuses, gesturing to her surroundings, “is saying her lines: ‘Would you like some sugar in your coffee?’ these are lines, you know?”
Picknell is calling in online from a Québec City coffee shop, steps away from the theatre where Le Petit astronaute, a commission from the Théâtre du Trident, is on stage for its first day of technical rehearsals. It’s a spectacle with plenty of literal moving parts, which can be stressful for the team, so even though, as the writer, she doesn’t expect to be called upon much today, she wants to be within reach. As she says, “Tout près, mais prête.” Near but ready. Standing by.
Like the other three recipients of a Siminovitch Emerging Artist Grant, Mary-Lee Picknell was selected by a 2025 Finalist, in her case, Anne-Marie Olivier, a prominent actor, director, and artistic director, internationally renowned for her documentary-based solo creation work. When Picknell was a third year acting student, deep in self-doubt, she wrote Olivier a fan letter. Over the years since then, they’ve become colleagues and friends. For a project during the pandemic, Picknell was slated to read Olivier’s work to audiences over the phone, and she recalls Olivier herself pulling up on her bike the night before to hand her a signed copy of the script. “She has so much confidence in the people she loves,” Picknell observes. “I used to be afraid not to be intelligent enough. I’m more of an instinctive and humanist person… [but] she said no, no, you are a writer, and now I’m starting to be a little bit more confident about myself.”
Siminovitch Finalists and Emerging Artists are encouraged to undertake some form of collaboration during their nomination year. “So I asked her if she wanted to be my writing mentor, and she was like, ‘So you think you need that, do you?’ Anne-Marie is so loving, you know. But I was like, ‘Well yeah, everyone needs that.’ So she said ‘Sure, sure, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,’ so we’re going to take some time, and she’s going to mentor me.” In fact, the Siminovitch connection has already had an impact. “I guess the way she put me at her side with the Siminovitch was also a way for her to tell me, you… you matter,” Picknell says. “Which is not nothing, in my opinion, because she is one of my favourite authors and favourite artists in the province of Quebec.”
She talks a little about the scene in Québec City, perhaps a less familiar milieu to the rest of Canada than Montreal. Like many theatre artists in the province, Picknell works in both cities, and beyond, but she’s happily settled in Québec City. “…There’s one theatre school,” she explains, “so it’s pretty special. Most of us had the same teachers, the same formation. There’s a feeling of community that is very strong.”
As though to illustrate the point, the director of Le Petit astronaute has suddenly appeared in the café, signaling to Picknell from off screen with a request to expand on a written image, to cover a set move that’s turning out to be a bigger deal than anticipated. Picknell ponders. Maybe the character could say ‘Mon char est pogné dans la neige,’ my car’s stuck in the snow, and then two people could rush over to help push the set piece off stage? She’ll work on it after we sign off.
Plus, “I think maybe she also came over to say thank you for being on call. Voilà,” she says, grinning and leaning in, “it’s going well.”
– Vanessa Porteous
Marie-Lee Picknell is an actor and playwright based in Québec City. Her first produced work Heimat/Revenir won the 2026 Prix Littéraire de la ville de Québec. It is the first time a playscript has been nominated, and awarded the prize. Her adaptation of Jean-Paul Eid’s Le Petit Astronaute has its world premiere at the Théâtre du Trident in April/May 2026. She is currently working on a new play.
Vanessa Porteous is a theatre artist, teaching artist, and writer based in Calgary. From 2018 to 2021 she was Jury Chair for the Siminovitch Prize.
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Photo : “Heimat-revenir” produced by Théâtre La Bordée (2024), script by Mary-Lee Picknell. Photo by Vincent Champoux.
