Playwrights Reading Series- Judith Thompson

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

Judith Thompson is a widely recognized playwright, director, screenwriter, actor and

artistic director/producer, with work that has garnered national and international awards.

Thompson completed her BA in English at Queen’s University and then went on to

pursue acting at the National Theatre School of Canada. She is now a Professor at the

University of Guelph for the School of English and Theatre Studies teaching courses in

acting, playwriting, and devising. She also frequently directs mainstage shows.

She has published works in a variety of medias. Her plays include The Crackwalker,

Lion in the Streets, The Thrill, Habitat, Watching Glory Die, and many others. She has

also written feature films, television movies, and radio plays. She is a two-time winner

of the Governor General's Literary Award for White Biting Dog and The Other Side of

the Dark. She is also the recipient of a Toronto Arts Award, two Chalmers Awards, a

Dora Award, the Walter Carsen Performing Arts Award, the Epilepsy Ontario Award,

and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. Her play Palace of the

End also won her the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an international award for a

Woman Writing in English.

Ms. Thompson is also the founding artistic director of R.A.R.E. theatre, a theatre

dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized and invisible communities to the stage

often through devised work. The first play was Body and Soul, featuring 14 women

between 45 and 80. It was followed by Sick (youth with chronic illnesses), Rare (nine

performers with Down syndrome), Borne (nine performers who used wheelchairs),

Wildfire (about institutionalization), After the Blackout (written with a cast with a variety

of disabilities) and Welcome to my Underworld (nine plays by emerging writers

dramaturged and directed by Thompson).