MARVIN CARLSON is the Sidney E. Cohn Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the author of many books and articles on European theatre history and on the theory of theatre and performance.
GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE is a prize-winning poet and novelist, a pioneer scholar of African-Canadian literature, and the E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. His dramas are Whylah Falls: The Play (1999), Beatrice Chancy (1999), Québécité (2003), and Trudeau: Long March / Shining Path (2007). The latter three titles are also operas.
BARRY FREEMAN is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama at the University of Toronto where he is completing a dissertation about collaborative intercultural theatre. Barry has taught at the University of Toronto and Brock University and has been published in Canadian Theatre Review, Theatre Research in Canada, alt.theatre and in the Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English series. Barry recently returned from an exchange to Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, where he studied Czech theatre and language.
KIRSTY JOHNSTON is an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on intersections between theatre, disability, health, and illness. Her work on these subjects has been published in Modern Drama, Theatre Topics, Text and Performance Quarterly, Canadian Theatre Review, and the Journal of Canadian Studies.
YANA MEERZON is an Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa. Her research interests are in theatre and drama theory, theatre of exile, and dramaturgy. Her book A Path of the Character: Michael Chekhov’s Inspired Acting and Theatre Semiotics was published in 2005. Currently, she is working on a manuscript "Performing Exile–Performing Self: Drama, Theatre, Film" due with Palgrave in 2010. Her articles appeared in New England Theatre Journal, Slavic and East European Journal, Semiotica, Modern Drama, Translation Perspectives, and L’Annuaire théâtral.
JOANNE TOMPKINS teaches drama at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Her most recent book is Unsettling Space: Contestations in Contemporary Australian Theatre. She is Treasurer of the International Federation for Theatre Research.
GUILLERMO VERDECCHIA, currently in the second year of his PhD at the Drama Centre at the University of Toronto, is an award-winning playwright, director, and actor. This article is adapted from a chapter of his MA thesis, originally written under the supervision of Ric Knowles, whom Guillermo would like to thank. He would also like to thank the anonymous readers whose thoughtful comments improved the article.
JERRY WASSERMAN is Professor of English and Theatre and Head of the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC. His publications on Canadian theatre include Modern Canadian Plays (in its 4th edition), Twenty Years at Play: A New Play Centre Anthology, Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice, co-edited with Sherrill Grace, and Spectacle of Empire: Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France. Jerry reviews theatre for Vancouver’s The Province newspaper and for his website, Vancouverplays.com. He is a long-time member of CanadianActors’Equity and ACTRA, and a charter member of the Union of BC Performers, with more than 200 professional credits for stage and screen.
ROBIN C.WHITTAKER is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama at the University of Toronto. During his studies he has taught theatre history, theory, and critical writing at universities across Canada. His publications cover an array of contemporary Canadian theatre topics, including postmodern dramaturgy, intercultural playwriting, the plays of Sally Clark, Theatre Gargantua, Theatre Passe Muraille, and the Stratford Festival. He is editor of Hot Thespian Action! Ten Premiere Plays from Walterdale Playhouse (AUP, 2008), a play anthology that sheds light on aspects of Edmonton’s longest running (non-university) theatre company. He is presently completing his theory- and archive-based dissertation, "Undisciplined Performance: Nonprofessionalized Theatre in the Professional Era."