Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia
MacIvor, Daniel
Prolific actor/playwright/director born in Sydney, Nova Scotia , July 23, 1962 and educated at Dalhousie University and George Brown College.
He has been writer in residence at Buddies in Bad Times , Tarragon Theatre and National Theatre School of Canada , which presented his You Are Here in March, 2000. His plays, many of them solo works, play alternative houses across the country.
He was the artistic director of da da kamera and is also a film and video artist. He has said of his work, "I think of myself as an actor. Watching directors direct on film doesn't make me want to direct. It's a pretty deadly job. As an actor your responsibility is based on a moment. As a director, [you have to] create a universe."
His work Marion Bridge has been performed across Canada, including at Mulgrave Road Theatre (1998) and Theatre Network in 2004, and he performed his work Monster at the Sydney Festival in Australia (1999). This last work, a masterpiece of the monologuist's art, is a study of evil, combining humour, frightening (albeit very simple) stage effects, and a story line which seduces and delights.
Other plays include: See Bob Run (da da kamera, 1989, directed by Ken McDougall, revived Epicentre Theatre, Vancouver, May 2000); Yes I Am and Who Are You? ( Buddies in Bad Times , 1989, Edward Roy); Wild Abandon ( Theatre Passe Muraille , 1990, Vinetta Strombergs, revived Epicentre Theatre, Vancouver, May 2000); Somewhere I Have Never Travelled ( Tarragon Theatre , 1990, Andy McKim ); Never Swim Alone (da da kamera, 1991, McDougall); 2-2 Tango (Buddies in Bad Times, 1991, McDougall); Jump (Theatre Passe Muraille, 1992, Daniel Brooks ); This is a Play (da da kamera, 1992, MacDougall); The Lorca Play (da da kamera, 1992, MacIvor/Brooks); In On It (Edinburgh Festival, 2000, MacIvor), for which he was awarded a Village Voice OBIE Award; Cul-de-Sac (da da Kamera 2003, Brooks); A Beautiful View (da da kamera, 2006); His Greatness ( Arts Club Theatre Vancouver 2007, Jessie Richardson Award ), How It Works (Tarragon, 2007), and This is What Happens Next with Brooks ( Necessary Angel at Berkeley St. 2010).
In 2009 MacIvor had four theatre projects in process: How It Works began a run at the Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg, and A Beautiful View was running in Washington. He premiered a new play, entitled Confession, about three generations of women, at the Mulgrave Road Theatre , and workshopped a follow-up called Redemption at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal. The third play in the trilogy, Communion (Tarragon 2010) is also a story of three women: a mother, daughter and psychiatrist, as they struggle to understand each other and themselves.
"All three plays are an exploration of man's [sic] search for meaning and the pandemic of narcissism," MacIvor says. "I've become convinced that the only thing we can do that's of any worth is to be of service to other people."
MacIvor's plays are often highly metatheatrical: the characters observe their own performances. In A Beautiful View the two women whose relationship is constantly shifting and redefining itself, know they are on stage. They are aware that they are enacting the past and being observed in this enactment.
MacIvor's first feature film, Past Perfect (produced by Camelia Frieberg) premiered at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, and played in theatres across Canada in 2003. He also shot his second feature, Wilby Wonderful in Nova Scotia in 2003. His screenplay adaptation of Marion Bridge, directed by Wiebke von Carolsfeld, also premiered in Toronto in 2002. More recently, he wrote and starred in the film Whole New Thing and appeared in the Halifax film Growing Op.
He has acted on stage in David Mamet's Oleanna, and Judith Thompson 's White Biting Dog (directed by Morris Panych ); in Canadian films, including Justice Denied: The Donald Marshall Story, and The Five Senses, for which he received a Genie Award nomination; and on television in Thom Fitzgerald's Beefcake, Don McKellar's CBC series Twitch City, and Jeremy Podeswa's film The Five Senses, for which he was also nominated for a Genie Award.
He has twice won the Dora Mavor Moore Award , is a Chalmers Award laureate, and in 2006 won the Governor General's Award for his collection of five plays, I Still Love You. In October 2008, he was named the 2008 recipient of the Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre , Canada’s largest annual theatre award. In 2009 he was named winner of a $25,000 playwriting commission from the Banff Centre for the Arts .
Daniel MacIvor website : www.danielmacivor.com
Last updated 2010-05-02
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