Colleen Murphy (born 1954 in Rouyn-Noranda,

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

screenwriter, film director and playwright. She is best known for works including her plays ''The December Man'', which won the

Governor General's Award for English-language drama The Governor General's Award for English-language drama honours excellence in Canadian English-language playwriting. The award was created in 1981 when the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry or drama was divided. Because the awar ...

at the 2007 Governor General's Awards, and ''Beating Heart Cadaver'', which was a shortlisted nominee for the same award at the 1999 Governor General's Awards, and the film '' Termini Station'', for which she garnered a Genie Award nomination for

Best Original Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the ...

at the

11th Genie Awards The 11th annual Genie Awards were presented March 20, 1990, and honoured Canadian films released in 1989. For this year, CTV had negotiated to serve as broadcaster and the academy formed a wholly-owned subsidiary, ACCTV Productions, to independe ...

."Playwright Colleen Murphy Is Writer-in-Residence"

University of Guelph , mottoeng = "to learn the reasons of realities" , established = May 8, 1964 ()As constituents: OAC: (1874) Macdonald Institute: (1903) OVC: (1922) , type = Public university , chancellor ...

, October 5, 2011.

Life and career

Murphy was a student at the

Canadian Film Centre The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is a charitable organization founded by filmmaker Norman Jewison in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1988. Originally launched as film school, today it provides training, development and advancement opportunities for pr ...

in the 1990s, and has also directed numerous films, both

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

s and

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

s. Her first feature film as a director, ''

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'', received two prizes from the Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival, and garnered two acting nominations at the

18th Genie Awards The 18th Genie Awards were held on 14 December 1997, to honour the best Canadian films of 1997. Nominees and winners The Genie Award winner in each category is shown in bold text. References External links Genie Awards 1997 on imdb {{Cana ...

. Her second feature film, '' Desire'', also garnered two acting nominations at the

22nd Genie Awards The 22nd Genie Awards were held in 2002 to honour films released in 2001. The ceremony was hosted by Brian Linehan. In advance of the Genie Award ceremony on February 7, all of the Best Picture nominees were screened at the Bloor Cinema in the we ...

. She has served as playwright in residence at a variety of institutions, including the

Factory Theatre Factory Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded as Factory Theatre Lab in 1970 by Ken Gass and Frank Trotz, and it was run for almost 20 years by Dian English. Factory was the first theatre to announce that it would e ...

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; the

Citadel Theatre The Citadel Theatre is the major venue for theatre arts in the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, located in the city's downtown core on Churchill Square. It is the third largest regional theatre in Canada. History It began in a former Salvatio ...

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

; the

Finborough Theatre The Finborough Theatre is a fifty-seat theatre in the West Brompton area of London (part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) under artistic director Neil McPherson. The theatre presents new British writing, as well as UK and world pr ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and the

. She was named playwright in residence at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...

's theatre department in June 2014.

Personal life

Murphy was born in Rouyn-Noranda,

, and raised in

Northern Ontario Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Pro ...

. She was married to filmmaker Allan King from 1987 until his death in 2009."Canadian documentary maker Allan King dies at 79"

CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca ...

, June 15, 2009.

Works

Films

*'' Termini Station'' (1989) *''Putty Worm'' (1993) *''The Feeler'' (1995) *''

'' (1996) *'' Desire'' (2000) *''War Holes'' (2002) *''Girl with Dog'' (2005) *''Out in the Cold'' (2008)

Plays

*''Fire Engine Red'' (1985) *''All Other Destinations Are Cancelled'' (1987) *''Pumpkin Eaters'' (1990) *''Down in Adoration Falling'' (1994) *''Beating Heart Cadaver'' (1998) *''The Piper'' (2002) *''The December Man'' (2007) *''The Goodnight Bird'' (2011) *''

Pig Girl ''Pig Girl'', first produced in November 2013 and then published in November 2015, is a play by Colleen Murphy that draws upon the events of the 2007 Pickton case surrounding the murders of Indigenous women by Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert P ...

'' (2012) *''Armstrong's War'' (2013) *''The Breathing Hole'' (2017), Commissioned by Stratford Festival

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, Colleen 1954 births Governor General's Award-winning dramatists Canadian women dramatists and playwrights Canadian women film directors Canadian radio writers Women radio writers Canadian screenwriters People from Rouyn-Noranda Writers from Quebec Writers from Ontario Canadian women screenwriters Living people Canadian Film Centre alumni 20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Anglophone Quebec people