Lifetime Members

Wanda is a Chalmers’ Award winner for her work as an actress at the Stratford Festival, Ontario and a Stage Door Award winner for her work at Blyth Festival, Ontario. For five years she was Artistic Director of Stage East Theatre, Halifax and is the founder and Honourary Lifetime Member of Playwrights’ Atlantic Resource Centre. She was presented with the first Established Artist Recognition Award (Theatre) by the province of Nova Scotia and she was invited to the first Stratford Festival Playwrights’ Unit. Other playwright residencies include, Neptune Theatre, Halifax and Mulgrave Theatre, Guysborough, Nova Scotia. Her first TV documentary, MILITARY WIVES shut out shut up shut down premiered at the Atlantic Film Festival. Her screenplay WALL OF SILENCE won the Linda Joy-CBC Prize at the Atlantic Film Festival. Her radio documentary LOST IN THE MUSIC was nominated by CBC for an Atlantic Journalism Award. Her plays have had dozens of premières in Atlantic Canada and have been featured in Toronto, Montreal, Blyth Festival, Saskatchewan, Boston, Copenhagen and the Women Playwright’s International Conference, Sweden.

Wendy’s work has resulted in two ACTRA awards, a Golden Sheaf award (for her film Ikwe), a New York Festivals Radio Program and Promotion Award in 2011 (Backbencher) and four nominations for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama (The Occupation of Heather Rose, All Fall Down, The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum, and Corker.) Chimera, her first play since leaving politics, premiered at the Tarragon Theatre. She created and was head writer for the award winning CBC Radio Series Backbencher (2009-2011).

Lill was born in Vancouver and grew up in London, Ontario. She completed a B.A. in political science at Toronto’s York University. She lived in Winnipeg from 1979 until 1984; during this time she began writing plays and developed a productive association with Prairie Theatre Exchange and its artistic director, Kim McCaw. In 1988, Lill moved to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and continued to write for theatre. She is a co-founder of the Eastern Front Theatre Company, in Dartmouth (1993). In 1997, Lill was elected as a Member of Parliament (NDP) for Dartmouth. She was re-elected in 2000 for a second term.

Plays by Catherine Banks have been performed across Canada, Scotland, the US and Catalonia and include: Miss N’ Me; It Is Solved By Walking; Bone Cage; Three Storey, Ocean View; and Bitter Rose, which aired on Bravo! Canada. Her work has been described as poetic, darkly humorous, courageous, and beautifully theatrical. Bone Cage premiered in 2007, and went on to win the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama in 2008. It Is Solved By Walking won the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2012, was translated into Catalan by Tant per Tant, and was one of three Canadian plays to tour Catalonia in 2012. Catherine has adapted Ernest Buckler’s novel The Mountain and the Valley for the stage. Her play Downed Hearts is set to premiere in 2021 and she is working on a new play The King of Days. A film adaptation of Bone Cage directed by Taylor Olson was the reciept of four audience awards at FIN including Best Screenplay. Catherine has led playwriting classes at Dalhousie University and Sage Hill.

A director, artistic director, festival curator, playwright, teacher and actor who has worked across the country, Mary Vingoe is celebrated for co-founding four major companies in Canada. She is the founding Artistic Director of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival at Canada’s National Arts Centre in Ottawa, co-founder and past Artistic Director of Toronto’s Nightwood Theatre, co-founder and past co-Artistic Director of Ship’s Co. Theatre in Parrsboro, NS and co-founder and past Artistic Director of The Eastern Front Theatre in Halifax. Vingoe has directed and taught at theatres and universities across the country including Canada’s National Arts Centre, Tarragon Theatre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, National Theatre School and Neptune Theatre. She is also a noted Canadian playwright.  Her 2013 play Refuge published by Scirocco Press, was a finalist for the Nova Scotia Masterworks Award and was short listed for the 2016 Governor General’s Award for Drama. Her new play Some Blow Flutes was nominated for Best New Play at the Merritt Awards in 2019. Some Blow Flutes is published by Scirocco Press.

Mary Vingoe is the recipient of many awards most notably Nova Scotia’s Portia White Award for artistic excellence. In 2011 Vingoe was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to Canadian theatre.

Glen Nichols has recently retired from Mount Allison University where he taught drama for 12 years. He has been on the editorial team for TRIC (Theatre Research in Canada) and The Literary Encyclopedia. He has contributed articles to the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia and the University of Toronto Quarterly. His other published works includes Angels & Anger: Five Acadian Plays, selected, edited and translated by Glen Nichols, co-editor of Canadian Performance Documents and Debates: A Sourcebook and a contributor to Translation Effects: The Shaping of Modern Canadian Culture. In his spare time, Glen is an avid gardener.

Melissa Mullenis a PEI based playwright, actor, director and farmer; and a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.

Her first play, Rough Waters, was developed with assistance from PARC  and produced by Neptune Theatre and TheatrePEI. Her second play, Flight, was winner of the PEI New Voices playwrighting competition. She has co-written several plays with husband Rob MacLean, including the short piece Dear Mr. Keith for Theatre Yes and Magnetic North, a stage adaptation of Sir Andrew Macphail’s The Master’s Wife, (PEI Heritage award winner), and The Man Who Saved the Songs (a tribute to esteemed folklorist Edward ‘Sandy’ Ives). Melissa and Rob were co-recipients of the 2020 PEI Distinguished Contribution to the Literary Arts award.

Her most recent stage play, Still Dancing, was developed with assistance from PARC during the 2021 PARC Playwrights’ Retreat; and was part of the first PEI Fresh From the Island Festival that fall. She is now developing Still Dancing as a feature film script.

Robert Chafe is a writer, educator, actor and arts administrator based in St. John’s, Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). He has worked in theatre, dance, opera, radio, fiction and film.

His stage plays have been seen in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and in the United States, and include Oil and Water, Tempting Providence, Afterimage, Under Wraps, Between Breaths, Everybody Just Calm the Fuck Down, and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (adapted from the novel by Wayne Johnston). He has been shortlisted three times for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and he won the award for Afterimage in 2010. He has been guest instructor at Memorial University, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, and The National Theatre School of Canada. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University. He is the playwright and Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud.