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.
Dennis Foon was the co-founder of Vancouver’s Green Thumb Theatre and served as Artistic Director for twelve years, where he began writing a body of groundbreaking plays for which he has received the British Theatre Award, two Chalmers Awards, and the Jesse Richardson Career Achievement Award. He has received a Gemini Award, two Writers Guild of Canada Awards, and four Leo Awards for his screenplays, which include Little Criminals, White Lies, Torso, Shine of Rainbows, and On The Farm. His latest feature film, Indian Horse—adapted from the novel by Richard Wagamese—premiered at TIFF in 2017.