Marcus Youssef is based on unceded Coast Salish Territory, a.k.a. Vancouver, Canada. His fifteen or so plays have been produced in multiple languages in scores of theatres in twenty countries across North America, Europe, and Asia, from Seattle to New York to Reykjavik, London, Venice, Hong Kong, Vienna, Athens, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
In 2017, Marcus received Canada’s most prestigious theatre award, the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, for his body of work as a playwright. He is also the recipient of Berlin’s Ikarus Theatre Prize, the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, the Seattle Times Footlight Award, the Vancouver Critics’ Innovation Award (three times), and the Canada Council Staunch-Lynton Award. Marcus co-founded the East Vancouver artist-run production hub Progress Lab 1422 and was the inaugural chair of the City of Vancouver’s Arts and Culture Policy Council.
Talon has published his Adrift, Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, Ali and Ali, Jabber, King Arthur’s Night and Peter Panties, and Winners and Losers.
He is currently International Artistic Associate at Farnham Maltings in the UK, Playwright in Residence at Tarragon Theatre, and Artistic Associate at Neworld Theatre in Vancouver. Marcus also sits on SCALE, a national arts roundtable formed in partnership with the Climate Emergency Unit of the David Suzuki Foundation, inspired by Seth Klein’s remarkable book, A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency.
Niall McNeil has been involved with theatre from an early age through his long association with the Caravan Farm Theatre. As a youngster he performed in Romeo and Juliet, Bull by the Horns, and Strange Medicine.
In 2011 Leaky Heaven and Neworld Theatre co-produced Peter Panties, a play written by McNeil and Marcus Youssef which was performed in the Vancouver Push Festival. Peter Panties won a Jesse Richardson Critics Choice Award for Innovation in theatre.
McNeil loves researching new ideas, writing music and writing plays. Niall also enjoys teaching acting with his friends at the Down Syndrome Research Foundation.
Al Etmanski is an author, community organizer and proud member of the disability community, thanks to his daughter Liz.
