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play there during the Para
Olympics, to great acclaim. The success of this verbatim play inspired Thompson to create a play with 9 performers with Down Syndrome for the Fringe Festival of 2012, called Rare. It was a hit of the Fringe, and then was invited by Soulpepper to be part of "Winter at the Young." It was a sold out hit which extended three times, and toured to several places. It was then that the RARE theatre company was formed (raretheatre.org) Judith Thompson is the artistic director of this theatre, which is dedicated to collaborating with communities which are rarely heard and seldom seen on our stages. The company then went on to produce a play in partnership with Spinal Injury Ontario, with 9 artists who use wheelchairs. The play was called Borne, and played at Soulpepper in the summer of 2014, again, to sold out houses. In the spring of 2015, Rare Theatre was awarded a Trillium grow grant, which has enabled the company to develop three new projects with differently abled and BIPOC artists. Rare theatre created a podcast called Children Speak with a diverse group of fourteen Toronto children. Children Speak is a play in which the children share their responses to the pandemic. The podcast medium allows people from all around the world to listen to these extraordinary children mark a moment of change in history. Thompson continues to write her own plays for the theatre, including Watching Glory Die (2012, Cultch and Berkley st. Theatre) inspired by the life and death of Ashley Smith. Ashley strangled herself with six c.o.s watching, as they were instructed not to go in till she was blue. Her death was later declared a homicide. Judith performed this play solo, playing all three characters.
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and fields. There were local children playing the characters at a young age (they were protected from the subject matter) and a core of eight professionals, including Grace
Thompson, Judith Thompson's daughter, as the central character, Serena. The show struck a chord in local audiences, moving each audience to tears and laughter and a standing ovation. Her latest play, Queen Maeve, premiered at the Here For Now theatre in Stratford in September 2023, with the great Clare Coulter playing the lead. Clare has starred in two of Thompson's premieres: White Biting Dog, and I Am Yours.
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written by a woman in the
English Language) and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, both for Palace of the End, which premiered at Canadian Stage, and has been produced all over the world in many languages. She has received honorary doctorates from Thorneloe University and, in November 2016, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
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In 2007 Thompson created the play Body and Soul with 14 women between the ages of 45 and 80, about women and aging, using the performers own words and experiences. The play premiered at
Soulpepper, and then had a second production at the Tarragon the following year. The Vancouver Olympics brought the
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The
Crackwalker is not theatre for the timid. Judith Thompson’s first play is a graphic, harrowing glimpse at life on the edge, at individuals battered by poverty, ignorance and hopelessness. It is also a brilliant piece of stagecraft that makes use of every well-chosen word and powerfully dramatic
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In the summer of 2018, 4th Line
Theatre produced her play, Who Killed Snow White?. The play is inspired by tragedies such as the death of Reteah Parsons, a Nova Scotia girl who was raped and then cyber bullied, and finally took her own life. The setting at 4th Line is outdoors, with several barns,
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in
Toronto, is centred on a kindergarten teacher who, while searching for her birth mother, is stalked by her violent ex-husband. Such Creatures premiered at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2011, and The Thrill premiered at the Stratford Festival in 2013. She wrote and performed her play Watching Glory
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The
Diamond among the pebbles ... Maybe the most powerful play ever written in Canada about two down and out couples in Kingston Ontario living on the edge, the outer edge of respectability, and trying to make some sense of their lives – to find love and a kind of domestic normality under the worst
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Thompson's work embraces visceral and subconscious elements of human experience which are seldom seen on stage. While the ambitiousness of her scope can occasionally result in plays which seem somewhat unwieldy in their form, she has an astonishing gift for providing theatrical experiences which
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for drama, and is the recipient of many other awards including the Order of Canada, the Walter Carsen
Performing Arts Award, the Toronto Arts Award, The Epilepsy Ontario Award, The B'nai B'rith Award, the Dora, the Chalmers, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award (a global competition for the best play
237:. This character was to provide the core of Thompson's first play The Crackwalker (1980), which focuses on four people struggling with economic hardship, anger issues resulting in domestic abuse, and patronizing societal attitudes. In 1991, CBC reviewer, Jerry Wasserman called the
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to follow violent and cruel impulses from one character to another, a route which the ghost of a young murdered girl, Isobel, uses to track down her killer. A penultimate scene which
Thompson cut after the first workshop production of the play, was restored for the 1999
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appeared at the Tarragon Theatre in 2001. In 1995 Youtheatre (Montreal) premiered Thompson's first play for young audiences, the multi-lingual Leaves Of Forever, including a national tour. It was directed by Michel Lefebvre with music by Canadian composer
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production, and Thompson has since then included the scene in all published editions. Productions of the play have been held in a wide variety of North American locations, including Toronto, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Portland and Vancouver, but also
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269:(1987), while containing similarly expressionistic elements, attaches these to the fears and fantasies of the central characters, to create an even more powerfully compelling theatrical experience.
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was also made into a feature film of that name, which, while satisfying in itself, offered a more conventional version of the uncanny story told in Thompson's play.
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moment to force audience members to confront their own darker sides. If you're looking for theatre that takes you to the edge of hell, The Crackwalker fits the bill.
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conceivable conditions. It's a very, very disturbing play and I think a deeply tragic play about the lowest depths one can imagine in a Canadian city.
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who composed music for a number of Judith's radio and stage plays, and the granddaughter of former Australian prime minister
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Die in 2014, premiering at The Cultch in Vancouver, and then produced at the Berkley Street Theatre later that year.
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Judith Thompson: Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, Vol. 3
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The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition
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won an award for Best Radio Drama in 1988. Thompson has received several
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incisively reach the deepest recesses of her audience's imaginations.
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579:"Playwright Judith Thompson writes new play, featured in new book"
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Enoch Arden, by Alfred Lord Jabber and his catatonic songstress
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She is currently a Professor of theatre studies at the
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About a Vancouver production with the same cast at the
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in February 2008. Her translation of Serge Boucher's
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Governor General's Award for English-language drama
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160:(born September 20, 1954) is a Canadian
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346:, which premiered in early 2004 at the
632:Video - Interview with Judith Thompson
400:Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Awards
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436:and another from Queen's University.
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1281:21st-century Canadian women writers
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275:(1990) uses a structure similar to
864:Three in the Back, Two in the Head
398:. She is the recipient of several
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1086:Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays
219:National Theatre School of Canada
164:. She has twice been awarded the
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388:The Other Side of the Dark.
125:Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
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119:The Other Side of the Dark
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614:, McGill-Queen's UP, 2001
239:Vancouver Fringe Festival
229:While in a mask class at
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832:A Short History of Night
710:Billy Bishop Goes to War
380:Governor General’s Award
261:Thompson's second play,
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166:Governor General's Award
114:Governor General's Award
103:Governor General's Award
1066:It Is Solved by Walking
634:- Theatre Museum Canada
415:Dora Mavor Moore Awards
211:Middletown, Connecticut
187:William Robert Thompson
146:William Robert Thompson
1142:Other Side of the Game
1128:Botticelli in the Fire
225:Career as a playwright
195:William Forde Thompson
1266:Writers from Montreal
1025:Where the Blood Mixes
853:The Ends of the Earth
552:Who Killed Snow White
432:in sacred letters by
177:Thompson was born in
154:Judith Clare Thompson
32:Judith Clare Thompson
23:Judith Jarvis Thomson
842:Fronteras Americanas
838:Guillermo Verdecchia
641:Athabasca University
583:University of Guelph
434:Thorneloe University
408:Lion in the Streets.
368:University of Guelph
248:Firehall Arts Centre
816:Amigo's Blue Guitar
800:Ann-Marie MacDonald
473:Lion in the Streets
428:She was awarded an
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617:Ric Knowles, ed.,
585:. October 23, 2006
540:Watching Glory Die
501:Lost and Delirious
430:honorary doctorate
392:Toronto Arts Award
374:Awards and honours
185:, the daughter of
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378:Thompson won the
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252:The Vancouver Sun
235:Kingston, Ontario
215:Kingston, Ontario
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131:Palace of the End
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587:. Retrieved
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1221:1954 births
895:Harlem Duet
589:November 5,
558:Queen Maeve
487:Perfect Pie
440:Major works
404:I Am Yours,
332:Perfect Pie
207:Frank Forde
173:Early years
1215:Categories
1118:Indian Arm
1046:Afterimage
947:Kevin Kerr
602:References
534:The Thrill
508:Capture Me
466:I Am Yours
344:Capture Me
267:I Am Yours
203:psychology
162:playwright
128:2007–2008
70:Playwright
67:Occupation
50:1954-09-20
1092:David Yee
1015:Bone Cage
985:Half Life
705:John Gray
546:Hot House
250:in 1993,
213:and then
199:professor
1107:Pig Girl
880:Ian Ross
394:and the
340:CanStage
309:Montreal
303:for the
281:La Ronde
179:Montreal
62:, Canada
884:fareWel
494:Habitat
411:Tornado
336:Habitat
1201:(2023)
1191:(2022)
1179:(2021)
1167:(2020)
1144:(2019)
1134:(2018)
1120:(2017)
1110:(2016)
1098:(2015)
1088:(2014)
1078:(2013)
1068:(2012)
1058:(2011)
1048:(2010)
1027:(2009)
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1007:(2007)
997:(2006)
987:(2005)
977:(2004)
965:(2003)
953:(2002)
943:(2001)
933:(2000)
910:(1999)
898:(1998)
886:(1997)
876:(1996)
866:(1995)
856:(1994)
844:(1993)
834:(1992)
818:(1991)
808:(1990)
785:(1989)
775:(1988)
763:(1987)
761:Prague
753:(1986)
743:(1985)
733:(1984)
723:(1983)
713:(1982)
701:(1981)
560:- 2023
554:- 2018
548:- 2016
542:– 2014
536:– 2013
530:– 2010
524:– 2007
516:– 2005
510:– 2004
504:– 2001
496:– 2001
490:– 2000
482:– 1997
476:– 1990
468:– 1987
462:– 1986
454:– 1984
448:– 1980
183:Quebec
142:Parent
1152:2020s
1035:2010s
918:2000s
793:1990s
686:1980s
565:Notes
117:1989
106:1984
1130:and
830:and
591:2016
480:Sled
324:Sled
291:Łódź
197:, a
44:Born
751:Doc
320:.
297:'s
279:'s
231:NTS
201:of
1217::
1197:,
1185:,
1173:,
1161:,
1140:,
1126:,
1116:,
1104:,
1094:,
1084:,
1074:,
1064:,
1054:,
1044:,
1023:,
1013:,
1003:,
993:,
983:,
971:,
959:,
949:,
939:,
927:,
904:,
892:,
882:,
872:,
862:,
850:,
840:,
824:,
814:,
802:,
781:,
769:,
759:,
749:,
739:,
729:,
719:,
707:,
695:,
581:.
181:,
158:OC
156:,
52:)
37:OC
670:e
663:t
656:v
593:.
48:(
25:.
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