Robert Lepage

The multidisciplinary artist Robert Lepage is all at once an actor, a director, a playwright and a stage director. Hailed by international critics, his original, contemporary and unusual works, inspired by recent history, transcend borders and challenge the standards of scenic writing, particularly through the use of new technologies.

From a very early age, Robert Lepage takes a keen interest in geography, but his growing passion for theatre dictates his choice of career: he enrolls at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec in 1975. After an internship with Alain Knapp in Paris in 1978, he returns to his hometown, where he develops the great artistic versatility for which he is known.

The year 1994 marks an important step in his career: he founds Ex Machina, a multidisciplinary creation company of which he is the artistic director. Also under his leadership, the multidisciplinary production center, La Caserne, is created in June 1997, in Quebec City. This last creative space sees the birth of almost all of Ex Machina’s productions until 2019.

Robert Lepage’s visionary side and will to create led him to promote and implement the construction of Le Diamant theatre in the heart of Quebec City. Inaugurated in August 2019, this unique cultural venue is intended to be an anchor point for the public, emerging artists and creators from all horizons.

His most significant works include the plays The Seven Streams of the River Ota and The Dragons’ Trilogy; his solos, The Far Side of the Moon and 887; the operas, The Damnation of Faust and Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle; his multimedia works, The Image Mill and The Library at Night; Peter Gabriel’s shows, The Secret World Tour and The Growing Up Tour; and with Cirque du Soleil, KÀ and TOTEM. 

His recent projects include: a wordless, danced version of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark – Glaube, Geld, Krieg und Liebe (Faith, Money, War and Love) a work created with the Berlin Schaubühne Ensemble – Macbeth, created for the Stratford Festival in collaboration with Ex Machina – and artistic direction and content theme design for the Canada Pavilion at the Osaka World Expo 2025.

Lepage’s most important awards are, the Légion d’honneur, Stanislavski Award, Prix Europa, Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Glenn Gould Prize and he was made Compagnon des Arts et des lettres du Québec.