Yvette Nolan is a playwright, dramaturge, and director. In 1996, she was the Aboriginal Writer-in-Residence at Brandon University, where she wrote the first draft of Annie Mae’s Movement. Her other plays include BLADE, Job’s Wife, Video, the libretto Hilda Blake, and the radio play Owen. She is also the editor of Beyond the Pale: Dramatic Writing from First Nations Writers and Writers of Colour and co-editor of Refractions: Solo and Refractions: Scenes. She was the president of Playwrights Union of Canada from 1998–2001, and of Playwrights Canada Press from 2003–2005. Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to an Algonquin mother and an Irish immigrant father, raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, she lived in the Yukon and Nova Scotia before moving to Toronto.

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Playwright, novelist, poet, screenwriter and actor Jean Marc Dalpé is a three-time recipient of the Governor General’s Literary Award: for his play Le Chien in 1988, for his anthology of plays Il n’y a que l’amour in 1999, and for his debut novel Un vent se lève qui éparpille (published in English as Scattered in a Rising Wind) in 2000. Over the years, he has translated works by several contemporary authors as well as classics by Shakespeare and Bertolt Brecht. He has also written stage adaptations of such works as the last chapter of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses (Molly Bloom) and Marta Hillers’ memoir A Woman in Berlin. He recently appeared in Mansel Robinson’s play Deux (Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario) and Gilles Poulin-Denis’s Dehors (Hôtel-Motel), and over the winter he toured western Canada with Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show, which he co-wrote with nine other writers (French, English, and Indigenous) and co-artistic directed. He holds two honorary doctorates for his body of work, from Laurentian University and the University of Ottawa. His latest play, La Queens’, premiered in January 2019 at Montreal’s Théâtre La Licorne, directed by Fernand Rainville.

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Active in the Saskatoon theatre community for the past decade, David Granger studied set design at the Université du Québec à Montréal, then expanded his skill set to include lighting design, acting, and most recently writing and directing, with Shadows of a Dancing Moon. He designed the sets and lighting for Gilles Poulin‑Denis’ play Rearview and the sets for Madeleine Blais‑Dahlem’s La Maculée. A longtime associate of La Troupe du Jour and a sessional lecturer in drama at the University of Saskatchewan, he has worked for numerous theatre events and companies, including Zones Théâtrales, Persephone Theatre, and the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan festival. David Granger lives in Saskatchewan.

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Bilingual and multitalented, Laura Lussier has worked as an actor, director, producer, writer, theatre workshop facilitator, and TV personality. Trained as an actor, she has appeared in over thirty productions, then later branched out into directing in 2009. For the Théâtre Cercle Molière, she directed the world premiere of Rébecca Déraspe’s Plus (+) que toi and Danielle Séguin‑Tétreault’s Et que ça saute! Since 2011, this energetic artist has also been involved in children’s theatre, as the founding artistic director of Théâtre p’tits bouts d’choux. Talonbooks published her co-written play Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show in 2021.

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Alexis Martin’s list of accomplishments is impressive. A graduate of the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal, he has appeared in more than 40 stage plays and several movies and TV series, including Les Boys, Beaux Malaises, and Les Parent, and worked with such outstanding directors as Robert Lepage, Pierre Falardeau, Luc Picard and Denis Villeneuve. Co‑artistic director (with Daniel Brière) of Montreal’s Nouveau Théâtre Expérimental since 1999, this compelling and disciplined artist is the author most recently of the trilogy L’histoire révélée du Canada français, 1608 à 1998 (whose first instalment, Invention du chauffage central en Nouvelle-France, was presented at the NAC in 2012), Animaux, Sounjata, and EXTRAMOYEN, splendeur et misère de la classe moyenne.

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Andrea Menard is a singer–songwriter, writer and actor. A passionate advocate for reconciliation and unity among nations, she conveys the richness of her Métis culture through her live performances, recordings and television appearances. She has released four award-winning albums: The Velvet Devil, Simple Steps, Sparkle and Lift. Her one-woman show The Velvet Devil, which toured across Canada, was adapted for TV in 2006 and earned Andrea a Gemini nomination for her performance. Unreservedly engaged with the world, she has expressed her ideals in song to royalty, prime ministers, ambassadors and governors general.

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Originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Gilles Poulin-Denis is an actor, playwright, director, translator, and dramaturg. His first full-length play, Rearview, was presented in both French and English in Sudbury in 2016. Rearview is published by Dramaturges Éditeurs and was nominated in 2010 for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Wajdi Mouawad named Gilles as one of the resident playwrights at the National Arts Centre’s Théâtre français, where he developed his play Dehors. Dehors was published by L’Instant-Scène in 2017. Gilles has collaborated on numerous devised pieces such as ishow, Après la Peur, and Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show. Gilles is the artistic director of Productions 2PAR4 and currently lives in Vancouver.

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PJ Prudat was born in a fierce snowstorm in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 Territory. She is a proud Half-Breed of Cree, Saulteaux, Scandinavian, French and Métis Nation (ancestral to Batoche and Red River) blood. She is a playwright, poet and writer of stories. Indigenous people and stories of this land incite her as an artist. She was Playwright in Rez at Native Earth Performing Arts (2013/14 ), a playwright with Factory Theatre’s NRCG writer’s unit (2015) and a recipient of a Shaw Festival 2017 Christopher Newton Award for playwrighting. She has been a company actor for both the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre Ensemble (2015/16) and the Shaw Festival Theatre (2017). Theatre and Storytelling has gifted PJ the invaluable experience of performing and writing in sacred and vast-reaching communities across the nation. PJ is a recipient of the 2017 REVEAL Indigenous Art Award and a finalist for both the K.M. Hunter Award and the Cayle Chernin Award.

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Mansel Robinson&’s plays have been produced across the country and include Colonial Tongues, Collateral Damage, The Heart As It Lived, Downsizing Democracy, Spitting Slag, Ghost Trains, and Street Wheat. Scorched Ice, a cold-war drama, was recently produced by Last Exit Theatre in Saskatoon. He has been nominated twice for Saskatchewan Book of the Year and is winner of the John V. Hicks Award and Geist Magazine’s Award for Distance Writing. Robinson has been writer-in-residence at the Pierre Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon; Northern Light Theatre in Edmonton; at the University of Windsor; and at the Regina Public Library in 2005/06. Current projects include Bite the Hand, which was presented as a staged reading at the Saskatchewan Playwrights’ Centre’s 2005 Spring Festival of New Plays. He is also working on a satire about gangsters and academia. Originally from Chapleau, Northern Ontario, Robinson is based in Saskatoon.

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Kenneth T. Williams is a Cree playwright from the George Gordon First Nation in the Treaty 4 territory. He was the first Indigenous person to earn an MFA in Playwriting and to become a professor at the University of Alberta’s Department of Drama.

The Herd had a dual world premiere at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and Tarragon Theatre in Toronto in the summer of 2021.

Previous productions include Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show (National Arts Centre), In Care (Gordon Tootoosis Nikaniwin Theatre), Cafe Daughter (Gwaandak Theatre, Workshop West Playwrights Theatre, Blyth Festival), Gordon Winter (Persephone), Thunderstick (Persephone/Theatre Network), Bannock Republic (GTNT/Persephone), and Three Little Birds (Workshop West Playwrights Theatre).

He lives in Edmonton with his partner, Dr. Melissa Stoops, and their cats, Augustus and Drusilla.

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