Cynthia Grant is a Canadian theatre director. Grant was a founding member of
Nightwood Theatre and served as the company's first
artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
. Grant later co-founded
Company of Sirens.
Career
Grant, along with co-founders
Kim Renders,
Mary Vingoe
Mary Vingoe is a Canadian playwright, actor, and theatre director. Vingoe was one of the co-founders of Canadian feminist theatre company Nightwood Theatre and later co-founded Ship's Company Theatre in Parrsboro and Eastern Front Theatre in Hali ...
and
Maureen White, started
Nightwood Theatre in 1979. Though Nightwood began as a collective, Grant served as its founding artistic director. It is unclear at what point Grant officially assumed the title.
At Nightwood, Grant occasionally acted in shows such as
Peter Handke's ''Self-Accusation'' (1980) and
Ann-Marie MacDonald
Ann-Marie MacDonald (born October 29, 1958) is a Canadian playwright, author, actress, and broadcast host who lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. MacDonald is the daughter of a member of Canada's military; she was born at an air force base near ...
's ''Nancy Drew'' ''(Goes in Search of Her Missing Mother)'' (1984). Grant directed many shows at Nightwood including ''The True Story of Ida Johnson'' (1979), Mary Vingoe's ''Ten Seconds After Closing'' (1980), ''The Yellow Wallpaper'' (1981), ''Flashbacks of Tomorrow'' (1981), ''Mass/Age'' (1982), ''Antigone'' (1983), Brian Metcalfe's ''Pink Flies!'' (1984), ''Love and Work Enough'' (1984, with Mary Vingoe),
Baņuta Rubess' ''Pope Joan'' (1984),
Amanda Hale's ''The Medical Show'' (1984), and
's ''The Edge of the Earth is Too Near, Violette LeDuc'' (1985). She left Nightwood Theatre in 1985.
Around the time of Nightwood's founding, Grant was on the board that founded
The Theatre Centre in Toronto. Grant wrote, performed, and directed ''Psycho Nuclear Breakdown'' at the spring 1980
Rhubarb! Festival.
In 1986, Grant co-founded Company of Sirens with
Lina Chartrand
Lina Chartrand (1948-1994) was a Canadian writer and theatre creator. She was a co-founder of the feminist theatre company, Company of Sirens. Her most famous work was the bilingual and partly autobiographical play, ''La P'tite Miss Easter Seals' ...
,
Aida Jordão, Catherine Glen,
Lib Spry, and
Shawna Dempsey
Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan are a Canadian performance art duo who, since 1989, have collaborated on performances, films, videos, publications and public art projects. Both out lesbians, Dempsey and Millan collaborate most commonly on humor ...
. Company of Sirens was founded as a feminist theatre company with a focus on developing productions to inspire social change. In 1991, Company of Sirens produced ''Djuna: What Of The Night'', a piece co-created and performed by Grant and Svetlana Zylin and inspired by the life and works of Djuna Barnes.
From 2003 to 2005, Grant was a faculty member of McMaster University's School of the Arts. While working at McMaster, Grant directed several shows including ''The Destruction of Eve'' by Svetlana Zylin in 2004.
Plays
* ''Peace Banquet: Ancient Greece Meets the Atomic Age'' - co-written with Micah Barnes, Sky Gilbert, Dean Gilmour, Charis Polatos, Kim Renders, Judith Rudakoff, Philip Shepherd, and Maureen White
* ''Psycho Nuclear Breakdown''
* ''Djuna: What Of The Night'' - co-created with Svetlana Zylin
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grant, Cynthia
Canadian theatre directors
Canadian artistic directors
Date of birth missing (living people)
Living people
McMaster University faculty
Feminist theatre
Year of birth missing (living people)