Welcome Damien Atkins as Playwright-in-Person at Festival 2015

We are thrilled to welcome Damien Atkins as Playwright-in-Person at Theatre Ontario Festival 2015 in Oshawa.  For nearly twenty years, Theatre Ontario has been bringing together professional playwrights and passionate community theatre artists at Festival.  Damien will be reading from his work on the afternoon of Friday, May 15.  Tickets are now on sale for the Festival.

Damien Atkins has acted on most of the major stages across the country.  Toronto credits include Angels in America, The Caretaker, King Lear, The Importance of Being Earnest (Soulpepper), Someone Else, Unidentified Human Remains..., Shopping and Fucking (Crow’s Theatre), Seussical (YPT), The Clockmaker (Tarragon), London Road, 7 Stories, Frost/Nixon, The Glass Menagerie, Amadeus, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods (Canadian Stage), and Mojo, Our Country’s Good (theatrefront). Other recent acting credits include I Am My Own Wife (Dallas Theater Center), The Way of the World (NAC/Soulpepper), The Retreat from Moscow (Neptune Theatre), Mozart in Amadeus and Henry James in Geometry in Venice (Segal Theatre, Montreal).

He spent four seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, as both actor and playwright. Their 2001 production of Good Mother, starring Seana McKenna, made Atkins the youngest playwright to have his work produced by the Festival. His other works as a playwright include Lucy (at Canadian Stage in Toronto and the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City), Miss Chatelaine (Theatre Passe Muraille/Grand Theatre) and Real Live Girl (Buddies in Bad Times/Manitoba Theatre Centre/Grand Theatre).

Film and TV credits include Take This Waltz (feature), The Listener (CTV), MVP (CBC), Slings and Arrows (TMN), Our Fathers (Showtime), The Matthew Sheppard Story (NBC), The Eleventh Hour (CTV), and This is Wonderland (CBC). Damien has been playwright in residence at Canadian Stage and Crow’s Theatre, as well as a Guest Instructor at the National Theatre School of Canada. He has received nine Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for acting and writing, winning four.

Theatre Ontario Festival is co-hosted by Oshawa Little Theatre and the Association of Community Theatres—Central Ontario.  Playwright-in-Person is made possible by a grant from the Playwrights Guild of Canada, funded by the Canada Council.  Join us at Theatre Ontario Festival 2015