Gascon-Thomas Award 2010
Judith Thompson and Wajdi Mouawad:
Recipients of the 2010 Gascon-Thomas Award
Montreal, October 19, 2010 – Days away from celebrating its 50th anniversary, the
National Theatre School of Canada (NTS) is proud to announce that this year's
Gascon-Thomas Award will be distinguished upon two of its alumni: playwright,
director, screenwriter, actor and professor of theatre Judith Thompson (Acting, 1979)
and playwright, director, actor and artistic director of the French Theatre of the National
Arts Centre Wajdi Mouawad (Interprétation, 1991). The two will receive their awards
during the ceremony that will launch the NTS's 50th anniversary, on Tuesday,
November 2, 2010. The Gascon-Thomas Awards will be handed out during the
second half of the event, at 11:30 a.m. in the Monument-National's Ludger-Duvernay
Theatre, in the presence of several past recipients, including Martha Henry (Acting, 1963),
Gordon Pinsent and Sharon Pollock.
Created in 1990 by the NTS Board of Governors, the
Gascon-Thomas Award is named after two of the School's founders,
Jean Gascon and Powys Thomas. The Award recognizes exceptional
achievement. Each year, two artists (one Anglophone and one Francophone)
are singled out and honoured, not only for the way they've shaped the world
of theatre and the live and visual arts, but also for their status as role
models to NTS students. Presided over by NTS governor Tom Peacocke, the jury
comprises several members of the School's Board of Governors, artistic directors
Sherry Bie and Denise Guilbault, CEO
Simon Brault, and student representatives.
Judith Thompson
Born in Montreal, Judith Thompson is a playwright, a director,
a screenwriter, an actor, and a professor of theatre. It was at the National Theatre School,
during a mask class where students were required to write their own monologues, that
this Acting program alumni gained her love for writing. In addition, it was in her
improvisation classes that Judith Thompson developed the basis for her first play,
The Crackwalker (1980).
Since then, she has 15 published plays, two feature films, a dozen radio plays, and many
chapters and articles about the process of playwrighting and theatre in education to her credit.
Recognized for work that gives voice to characters living on the fringes of society, Judith Thompson
has garnered many awards. She has twice won the Governor General's Literary Award for her plays
(White Biting Dog in 1984 and The Other Side of the Dark in 1989). She has also won the Toronto
Arts Award, the Nellie for Radio Drama, the Dora, the Chalmers, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
(recognizing women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre),
and The Walter Carsen Performing Arts Award, among others. Her plays are produced and taught in
many languages all over the world. Her play Palace of the End won the Amnesty International
Award for Freedom of Expression. In 2005, she was made Officer of the Order of Canada.
This month, it was announced that Judith Thompson is a 2010 Governor General’s Literary
Award finalist. She is a full professor at the University of Guelph and lives in Toronto
with her husband and five children.
Wajdi Mouawad
Born in Lebanon in 1968, Wajdi Mouawad co-founded Théâtre Ô Parleur with Isabelle Leblanc,
shortly after graduating from the National Theatre School in 1991. From 2000 to 2004, he was
the artistic director of Montreal's Théâtre de Quat'Sous. In 2005, he founded two companies
specializing in the development of new work: Abé carré cé carré in Montreal (in collaboration
with Emmanuel Schwartz) and Au carré de l’hypoténuse in Paris.
Over the past 15 years, Wajdi Mouawad has established himself, both in Canada and in Europe,
as a uniquely original player on the contemporary theatre scene, acclaimed for his direct
and uncompromising narratives and his spare and compelling theatre aesthetic. He directs
his own plays, over a dozen to date, including Journée de noces chez les
Cromagnons/Wedding Day at the Cro-Magnons', Littoral/Tideline, Rêves, Incendies/Scorched,
and Forêts, as well as adaptations, including Céline's Journey to the End of the Night
and Cervantes' Don Quixote), Les Troyennes [The Trojan Women], Les Trois Soeurs [Three Sisters],
OEdipe roi [OEdipus Rex], Reading Hebron, Trainspotting, and Six Personnages en quête d'auteur
[Six Characters in Search of an Author].
Since September 2007, Wajdi Mouawad is artistic director of the French Theatre of the National Arts
Centre. In addition, he has associated his own French company with l'Espace Malraux scène nationale
de Chambéry et de la Savoie, in France. In 2007, he played in his own work Seuls at the Festival
d'Avignon. Working on both side of the Atlantic, his projects unite several partners, actors,
artists, and theatres in France and Quebec. He was, in July 2009, associate artist for the
Festival d'Avignon, where he premiered his quatuor Le Sang des promesses, which comprises
Littoral/Tideline, Rêves, Incendies/Scorched, Forêts and Ciels. In 2010, Wajdi Mouawad acted
in Les Justes by Albert Camus, under the direction of Stanislas Nordey. Wajdi Mouawad has
received several awards; he is, among others, an Officer of the Order of Canada.