Playwrights Reading Series- Debbie Patterson

The 30th Season

of the

PLAYWRIGHTS READING SERIES

On Zoom

2022-2023

“Staging Alternative Narratives”

hosted by the

Department of English and the Department of Theatre

University of Regina

All readings will begin at 7:00PM CST.

All readings will be supported by an ASL interpreter.

Debbie Patterson is a Winnipeg playwright, composer, director and actor. She trained

at the National Theatre School of Canada and under the former Artistic Director of the

Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba (PTAM). She has also been a member of the

Playwright’s Unit and served as Artistic Associate for Prairie Theatre Exchange.

Patterson’s plays include Zoom Lens, How it Ends (Playwrights Canada Press), Sargent

& Victor & Me, Candy From a Baby, and Molotov Circus, which was nominated for the

Harry Rintoul Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her plays for young

audiences, which are adaptations of Robert Munsch stories, have been widely produced

across Canada. Her musical Head, about the final days of Anne Boleyn, was produced

in 2006 by Shakespeare in the Ruins to a completely sold-out run.

As a founding member of Shakespeare in the Ruins (SIR), Patterson served two terms

as Artistic Chair of the company. She has also acted in over twenty of their productions

(including roles as Titania and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet), directed six productions

(including Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth), and

composed music for four productions. She was the first physically disabled actor to play

Richard III in a professional Canadian production. Her other directing credits include Breaking Up is Hard to Do for Rainbow Stage,

Becoming Dr. Ruth for Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, Saint Joan for Theatre by the River

and The Crackwalker for Sweet and Salty Collective.

Patterson has served as the Carol Shields Writer in Residence at the University of

Winnipeg, the Playwright in Residence for Theatre Projects Manitoba and the Theatre

Ambassador for Winnipeg’s Cultural Capital of Canada celebrations. She also

coordinated and delivered a project to provide free weekly drama classes to clients of

the Winnipeg Harvest Foodbank.

She has twice been shortlisted for the Ontario Arts Foundation’s Gina Wilkinson Prize,

and as a recipient of the United Nations Platform for Action Committee’s Activist Award

(2015) and the Mayor’s Making a Mark Award (2017), she is a proud advocate for

disability arts through her work as the Artistic Director of Sick + Twisted Theatre.