DAVID BEASLEY, a research librarian at the New York Public Library, was born in Hamilton, Ontario and has lived abroad since 1953. He received a PhD in political economics from the Graduate Center of the New School for Social Research and has published extensively on John Richardson, including the definitive biography The Canadian Don Quixote (1977, 1978) and Major John Richardson's Short Stories (1985). Among his other works is Through Paphlagonia with a Donkey (1983).
MARK BLAGRAVE is Assistant Professor in the Division of Humanities and Languages at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John where he teaches courses in dramatic literature and practical theatre. A graduate of the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama at the University of Toronto, he is an active playwright and director, and a Vice-President of the Bi-Capitol Project Inc. - Saint John's major theatre restoration project.
MARCEL FORTIN enseigne au département des langues et littératures du Collège de Valleyfield et vient de terminer une thèse de doctorat sur le théâtre d'expression française dans l'Outaouais (Université d'Ottawa). Il st membre du comité de rédaction de l'Annuaire théâtral, périodique annuel spécialisé en histoire du théâtre québécois et collaborateur aux Cahiers de théâtre Jeu et au Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec.
DAVID GARDNER is a professional actor, director and Canadian theatre historian. In addition to television and film appearances, he has performed with Stratford (where he returns this summer), the Old Vic and Tarragon. In the 1960s he produced drama for CBC Television and went on to become Artistic Director of the Vancouver Playhouse and Theater Officer for the Canada Council. He earned a Ph.D. from the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, University of Toronto, with a thesis on the early years of Canadian theatre history and has been teaching in both the Drama Centre and University College Drama programmes.
JOHN E. HARE is Professor of Quebec literature and theatre at the University of Ottawa and author of several articles on theatre history in Quebec. In collaboration with Paul Wyczynski and Réginald Hamel he published the Dictionnaire Pratique des Auteurs Quebecois (1976), of which a second edition is in press.
PETER HAY has published a number of biographical and critical articles about George Ryga; he also produced a major CBC documentary about him. Formerly based in Vancouver where he worked with Talonbooks, he is currently teaching theatre history and criticism at University of California in Los Angeles.
JAMES HOFFMAN was an instructor in the theatre department at the David Thompson University Centre in Nelson, British Columbia until that institution was closed by the provincial government as a 'restraint' measure. His particular research interest, the theatre history of British Columbia, has resulted in papers on 'Native Drama in B.C.: Problems of Historiography', research on the Hamatsa ceremony, Bullock-Webster, Everyman Theatre, and The Canadian Drama Awards. He has studied and worked in the theatre in Canada, England and the United States, completing his doctorate at New York University with a dissertation on George Ryga.
PATRICK MCFADDEN teaches documentary film at Carleton University. He is a co-founder of the Canadian film magazine Take One and is a frequent contributor to CBC arts programmes.
JOHN ORRELL is professor of English at the University of Alberta. Recent publications include Fallen Empires: The Lost Theatres of Edmonton (1981) and The Theatres of Inigo Jones and John Webb (1985).
MAJOR JOHN RICHARDSON (1796-1852), army officer, author, newspaperman, is perhaps best known to theatre historians for his novels, two of which (Wacousta and The Canadian Brothers) have been dramatized by James Reaney. His one-act farce, published for the first time to our knowledge in this issue, was recently discovered by David Beasley, whose biographical article on him appeared in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography VIII.
LÉA V. USIN teaches theatre at the University of Ottawa where she is an Assistant Professor. A graduate of the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, University of Toronto, where she completed a thesis on the plays of de Ghelderode, her research interests are in Canadian and modern drama. Her article on the Town Theatre of Ottawa is forthcoming in Canadian Drama.