Playwrights Lab 2027

Nina Lee Aquino, a Filipino Canadian, is a renowned director, dramaturge, and artistic leader. Her journey began as the inaugural Artistic Director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian theatre company, where she organized the first Asian Canadian theatre conference and edited a seminal anthology of Asian Canadian plays, alongside co-editing an award-winning book on the subject. She became Artistic Director at Cahoots Theatre Company and Factory Theatre, leading to her current role as Artistic Director of English Theatre at the National Arts Centre.

Aquino's directorial work has garnered prestigious awards, including the Ken McDougall Award, John Hirsch Prize, Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Director, and three Dora Awards for Outstanding Direction. She co-authored the play Miss Orient(ed) and serves as an Adjunct Professor at York University. Additionally, Aquino was the President of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatre from 2018-2024. In 2019, she was honored with the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Margo Bindhart and Rita Davies Cultural Leadership Award.

Photo by Cesar Ghisilieri
 

Keith Barker (Métis) is an actor, playwright, director, and dramaturg from Northwestern Ontario. He is the Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program at the Stratford Festival, and the former Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. Before that, Keith served as a theatre program officer for the Canada Council for the Arts. Keith is the recipient of the Johanna Metcalf Prize, the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, and the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt Award. He was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama in 2018 for his play, This Is How We Got Here. Keith received the Saskatchewan and Area Theatre Award for Achievement in Playwriting for The Hours That Remain and a Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change. Keith's newest play, Raised by Women is part of Canadian Stage's 2027 season, and was published in Spring 2026.

Née à Rouyn-Noranda, au Québec, et ayant grandi dans le Nord de l’Ontario, Colleen Murphy a remporté les Prix littéraires du Gouverneur général pour le théâtre de langue anglaise en 2016 et en 2007 pour ses pièces Pig Girl et The December Man/L’homme de décembre, respectivement. Ces deux pièces ont également reçu le Carol Bolt Award.

Parmi ses autres pièces figurent Holiday in Zürich, Jupiter, The Breathing Hole/AGLU (finaliste du Susan Smith Blackburn Prize et du Carol Bolt Award), The Society for the Destitute Presents Titus Bouffonius, I Hope My Heart Burns First, Armstrong’s War, The Goodnight Bird, The Piper et Beating Heart Cadaver, cette dernière ayant été finaliste d’un Prix littéraire du Gouverneur général.

Emma is Artist in Residence at Concordia University, and a Director and Dramaturg. She is the former Artistic and Executive Director of Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, where for fourteen years, she dramaturgically collaborated on the development of new Canadian work for the stage.

Emma has directed new Canadian plays across the country, including Building Houses and Falling Trees by Megan Gail Coles, Okinum by Emilie Monnet (co-director), Refuge by Mary Vingoe, I Don’t Even Miss You by Elena Belyea, The Baklawa Recipe by Pascale Rafie. She co-founded Talisman Theatre for whom she directed, among others, the award-winning productions That Woman by Daniel Danis, Down Dangerous Passes Road by Michel Marc Bouchard, and The Medea Effect by Suzie Bastien. She co-created Skin, a performance piece with the interdisciplinary company The Bakery.

Emma is a recipient of LMDA’s Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy, and the Conseil Québécois du théâtre Prix Sentinelle. She is a graduate of Concordia University’s Theatre Department, and NTS’ Directing Program. She feeds her inner punk rocker by playing in basement bands The Tibaldos and The Dépanneurds.

Image by Bernardo Fernandez

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig is an internationally produced playwright whose trilogy, The China Plays: Three Parables of Global Capital, is published by Methuen Drama. The plays—The World of Extreme Happiness, The King of Hell's Palace, and Snow in Midsummer—have been produced in Canada at the Shaw Festival and the National Arts Centre; in the U.K. at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampstead Theatre, and the National Theatre; in Japan at Haiyuza Theatre; and in the U.S. at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Goodman Theatre. Her latest play, The Unsinkable, premieres at PAC NYC in February 2027. Her honors include the Whiting Award, the Yale Drama Series Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the Keene Prize for Literature, and a United States Artist Fellowship. Frances is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Writers Guild of America East, and a resident fellow at New Dramatists until 2032. She lives in Southern Appalachia.