Gascon-Thomas Award 1998

Marie-Hélène Falcon and John Murrell:
1998 Gascon-Thomas award winners

Montreal, May 1, 1998 – Playwright John Murrell and Festival Théâtre des Amériques director Marie-Hélène Falcon are this year’s winners of the Gascon-Thomas Award, Canada’s only national theatre prize. The honorees were named today by the National Theatre School of Canada, which administers the award.

Gascon-Thomas laureates have demonstrated excellence in the theatre field and have made outstanding contributions to Canadian theatre, and their examples serve as an inspiration to young theatre artists.

Marie-Hélène Falcon

With her snow-white hair and signature red glasses, Marie-Hélène Falcon is a familiar figure to Quebec’s theatre lovers. Since she co-founded the Festival Théâtre des Amériques in 1985, over 200,000 spectators have trusted her instincts for what is newest and freshest in theatre around the world. Through the Festival, Marie-Hélène Falcon was the first to bring such theatre greats as Peter Brooks, Tadeusz Kantor, Ariane Mnouchkine, Peter Sellars, and Robert Wilson to Canada.

John Murrell

Born in Texas, John Murrell says he considers himself "a true Western Canadian in spirit". He moved to Calgary in 1967 at the age of 22 and, after obtaining a Bachelor’s of Education from the University of Calgary, taught for a few years before devoting himself to writing. Today he is one of Canada’s most established and widely-produced playwrights.

His work is known for its intelligence and accomplished craft. Among his best-known plays are Power in the Blood, which won the Clifford E. Lee Playwriting Award in in 1975, the international success Memoir (1978), Waiting for the Parade (1980), and Farther West (1986), written for Martha Henry, which won the Chalmers Award the same year. His play Democracy won the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Best Play Award in 1992, and Far Away Nearby won him a second Chalmers Award in 1996. Most recently, his play When They Stop Dancing was performed in Calgary by Theatre Junction, and Death in New Orleans will soon be performed by the theatre troupe One Yellow Rabbit. Murrell is also at work on a novel, his first.

Murrell is also noted for his translations of Russian, French, and Italian plays, including memorable versions of Chekhov’s The Seagull and Uncle Vanya commissioned by the Stratford Festival. In 1996 he translated Québécoise playwright Carole Fréchette’s play The Four Lives of Marie.

Murrell has been playwright-in-residence with Alberta Theatre Projects, an associate director at the Stratford Festival, the head of the Playwrights Colony at the Banff School of Fine Arts, and head of the Theatre Section of the Canada Council. He has worked with most of Canada’s best-known directors and his plays have been mounted in theatres across the country.