Walker CV – pg. 1 DAVID GAGNON WALKER Playwright, Performer, Dramaturg, Translator | English & French (fluently bilingual) www.davidgagnonwalker.com | [email protected] | +15145137518

EDUCATION

2016-19 National Theatre School of Canada (Montréal) – Playwriting Program. Training in playwriting, dramaturgy, translation, TV writing, acting, and producing. Selected mentors: Andrea Romaldi, Brian Drader, Jonathan Garfinkel, Maureen Labonté, Anthony Black, Rose Plotek, Nadia Ross.

2015-16 University of Toronto – MA in Performance Studies. Thesis project on playwriting and contemporary performance theory. Research Assistant for Dr. T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko.

2011-15 Concordia University (Montréal) – BA (Hons) in English & Creative Writing.

PLAYWRITING

Premium Content. A video artist makes work based on their friends' romantic lives and shares it online without their consent. Major Matt Mason Collective's production features rotating casting: each actor learns 3 roles, for a different casting & gender combination every performance. 65 minutes, 5 or 6 actors. • November 17-28, 2020: Upcoming presentation at Fringe Theatre Adventures in Edmonton, AB. • January 21-25, 2020: Presentation at High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, AB. Sold-out run. • June 21-30, 2018: Premiere production by Major Matt Mason Collective at Joyce Doolittle Theatre (Pumphouse Theatres). Directed by Geoffrey Simon Brown. Calgary, AB. Sold-out run. • July 2016: 4-week development residency at the Citadel Theatre Playwrights' Forum. Directed by Brian Dooley. Dramaturgy by Colleen Murphy. Edmonton, AB.

This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear. A Strange Victory Performance. Writer/performer. Text read aloud by myself and a participating audience. The rise and fall of an imaginary civilization, told through the perspective of a child who sees it all. Directed by Christian Barry and Judy Wensel. • July 2021: Upcoming presentation at Found Festival. ATB Financial Arts Barns, Edmonton, AB. • May 2021: Upcoming premiere at rEvolver Festival. The Cultch, Vancouver, BC. • February 2020: Workshop and public presentation at BellsView Studios. Halifax, NS.

Nothing but Flowers. A social media CEO and his spiritual advisor are on a forest retreat, working to design new technology for communicating with the natural world. The plan works. Sort of. 90 minutes, 5 or more actors. • April 29-May 4, 2019: Production in Studio Hydro-Québec at Monument-National (Montréal), as part of the National Theatre School of Canada's New Words Festival. Directed by Rose Plotek, assistant directed by David Gagnon Walker. Dramaturgy by Andrea Romaldi. • 2018-19: Multiple workshops at NTS. Directed by Rose Plotek, assistant directed by David Gagnon Walker.

The Big Ship. Hybrid of naturalism, surrealism, performance art, and documentary theatre exploring the war on drugs from two distinct global perspectives. 75 minutes, 5 actors. • October 2018: Overall winner of the Playwrights Guild of Canada's RBC Emerging Playwright Award. • Reading in Toronto as part of the Tom Hendry Awards nominee gala. • April 2018: 1-week workshop and public reading at NTS. Direction and dramaturgy by Jonathan Garfinkel.

Pink Moon. A human being and a fallen angel try to reckon with the the spiritual implications of man-made climate change. Co-created with Judy Wensel and Harri Thomas. 60 minutes, 2 actors. • August 2018: Residency at Playwrights' Workshop Montréal. Dramaturgy by Fatma Sarah Elkashef. • June 2017: 1st place winner of the Wildfire National Playwriting Competition. One-week workshop and public reading with Major Matt Mason Collective at Calgary's Theatre Junction GRAND. Directed by Joe Perry.

One of Us Must Know. Poetic physical theatre play about a couple's struggle with alcoholism. 50 minutes, 2 actors. • August 11-21, 2016: Remount at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. Directed by Ben Gorodetsky. • January 27- February 7, 2016: Premiere production at Edmonton's Westbury Theatre as part of Chinook Series. Presented by Expanse Festival of Movement and Dance. Directed by Ben Gorodetsky.

Walker CV – pg. 2 PERFORMANCE/CREATION

These Birds Sound Just Like a Recording of Birds. Performer/creator. Interdisciplinary performance combining theatre, dance, and contemporary circus. What are our core beliefs about ourselves and our society? What if they turn out not to be true? How do we adapt? How are we to live? Co-created with Kerttu Pussinen and Tori Morrison. • March 2021: Upcoming residency at Subtopia Cirkuslillan. Stockholm, Sweden. • July-Aug 2019: Two-week development residency at CIRKO Centre for New Circus. Helsinki, Finland.

The Edmonton Poems. A Strange Victory Performance. Performer/creator. I wrote and published 7 new texts about my relationship to my home town on the Instagram account @strange_victory, then performed the series on Instagram Live. • April 27-May 3, 2020: Presented online in the #ArtApart series by the National Theatre School of Canada.

Everybody's Everybody's Autobiography. A Strange Victory Performance. Performer/creator. I wrote a new text in a public Google Doc over 24 hours, with input from 61 anonymous audience members. I then performed the result, live- streamed on Instagram Live, and released afterwards as a permanent archival video. • April 1-2, 2020: Presented by Verb Theatre's Blue Light Festival of online performance. Calgary, AB

Productive Time. Performer/creator. 73-hour site-specific & online performance. I live-streamed myself writing a new text for 72 hours in a one-bedroom apartment, then performed it in that apartment for a live and live-streamed audience. • June 2017: Presented by Found Festival. In a private residence on 99th Street. Edmonton, AB.

Reading Light (Il faut continuer, I can't go on, je vais continuer). Performer/creator. Bilingual endurance reading (8hrs) of Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable/L'innommable. • May 2016: Presented by School of Making Thinking's conference Words and [ ]. Fonderie Darling, Montréal.

Little Urban Green. Librettist. Libretto for an electroacoustic operetta about urban green spaces. Music by Robert Taylor. 45 minutes. Three singers, a monologist, a harp, and a laptop computer. • November 2015: Premiere performance at Array Space (Toronto) by TOLOrk (Toronto Laptop Orchestra).

DRAMATURGY

Softly, now. 2b theatre company. Dramaturg and contributing writer. Created with Anthony Black and Christian Barry. Black and Barry examine their friendship, their relationship to land and home, and their thoughts about the future. • March 24-April 5, 2020: Scheduled premiere by 2b at Bus Stop Theatre (Halifax). [Postponed, COVID-19.] • July-Dec 2019: Development workshops with 2b theatre company. July 8-12, July 22-27, December 2-14.

The Last Children. Curtain Razors (Regina, SK). Dramaturg. Created with Judy Wensel, Lazlo Paradis, and Iris James. Judy and David are adults. Lazlo and Iris are 12. They're making a show together about how it feels to grow up in the age of the climate crisis. Starring Lazlo and Iris and some of their friends. • August 2020: Second creation phase. Curtain Razors/FADA Dance, Regina SK. • January-February 2020: First creation phase. Curtain Razors/FADA Dance, Regina SK.

Schrödinger's Cash [working title]. 2b theatre company. Co-writer and dramaturg. Play co-created with Anthony Black exploring the nature of consciousness. A conceptual artist and his family are transformed by his traumatic brain injury. • 2019-2020: In development with 2b theatre company. Multiple workshop periods and public readings.

Particle # B. Royal Particle Productions. Dramaturg. Contemporary circus show about particle physics and mental health, created and performed by Kerttu Pussinen. Ongoing international touring. • February-March 2019: Four-week production in the curated RCC Fringe series at Adelaide Fringe (Australia). • January-February 2019: One-week production in the curated series of Fringe World (Perth, Australia). • August 2018: Residency with three public performances at La fabrique des petites utopies in Grenoble, France.

Trying to Listen While Not Giving a Fuck. Surreal SoReal Theatre. Dramaturg. Bilingual play by Jon Lachlan Stewart about a classical composer, his estranged teenage daughter, and a videogame designer she's obsessed with. • July 2018: Presentation at ZH Festival, directed by Jon Lachlan Stewart. Montréal, QC.

The Observed Flight of Birds. 2b theatre company. Co-writer and dramaturg. Created with Anthony Black, Christian Barry, and the 2018 graduating class of NTS. 14 characters deal with social collapse in a very near imagined future. • Oct 2017: Production at Monument-National. Directed by Anthony Black and Christian Barry. Montréal, QC. Walker CV – pg. 3 FRENCH-TO-ENGLISH TRANSLATION

The Retreat. Translator. Québécois play La retraite by Gabrielle Chapdelaine, about a strange, purgatory-like self-help retreat. Commissioned by Playwrights' Workshop Montréal (PWM). Translation dramaturgy by Maureen Labonté. • November 26-29, 2019: Workshop and public reading at PWM. Directed by Rose Plotek. • 2019: Awarded the Playwrights' Workshop Montréal Cole Foundation Mentorship for Emerging Translators.

"She". Translator. Translation of «Elle» by Jean Genet, a play about a photographer hired to take a portrait of a very strange Pope. First English version in Canada. Translation dramaturgy by Maureen Labonté. • October 2017: Workshop and public reading at NTS, directed by Harri Thomas. Montréal, QC.

Patrick's Trick/Patrick truque. Co-translator. Bilingual French/English version of a German TYA play by Kristo Šagor. A young boy tries to learn about Down's Syndrome so he can be a good sibling to his new little brother. • March 2017: Staged reading at Goethe-Institut (Montréal), directed by Kristo Šagor.

RESIDENCIES AND OTHER TRAINING

2019-20 RBC Emerging Artist-in-Residence with 2b theatre company (Halifax). Mentorship in creation, direction, and new play development from Artistic Co-Directors Anthony Black and Christian Barry. Mentorship in producing and community engagement from Managing Producer Karen Gross.

2019 Cole Foundation Mentorship for Emerging Translators, awarded by Playwrights' Workshop Montréal. Mentorship from Maureen Labonté during the translation of Gabrielle Chapdelaine's La retraite.

2019 6-month mentorship with playwright and Neworld Theatre Senior Artist Marcus Youssef, awarded by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Focus on playwriting in collaborative and devised theatre contexts.

2019 CIRKO Centre for New Circus (Helsinki, Finland). Two-week residency with Kerttu Pussinen and Tori Morrison to develop These Birds Sound Just Like a Recording of Birds.

2019 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center (Connecticut, USA). One-week Playwright Observer Residency at the National Playwright's Conference to work on This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear.

2019 "Conversations on Performance" at Festival TransAmériques (Montréal). Five-day seminar on experimental and interdisciplinary performance creation, framed around FTA programming.

2019 One-week exchange to Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique in Paris, France. Multi-lingual workshop in devised theatre creation with artists from across Europe.

2018 Playwrights' Workshop Montréal. One-week residency to develop Pink Moon.

2018 Banff Playwrights' Lab. One-week residency to develop Nothing but Flowers.

2016 Citadel Theatre Playwrights' Forum (Edmonton). One-month residency to develop Premium Content. Direction by Brian Dooley. Dramaturgy by Colleen Murphy.

FACILITATION AND TEACHING

2020-Present The Last Children creation workshops (Curtain Razers, Calgary AB). Devised creation workshops with Regina youth as part of the creation process for The Last Children. Led with Judy Wensel.

2019-Present Wildfire Creation Unit + Artistic Producer Mentorship Program (Major Matt Mason Collective, Calgary AB). Role in organizing and delivering new play development and mentorship activities for young Alberta creators. One-on-one mentorship with young playwrights.

2019-Present The Colloquium Series (2b theatre company). Planning, coordinating, hosting, and securing funding for a bi-monthly series of discussion events with various moderators on artistic practice in Halifax.

2019 One Long Table and a Microphone (2b theatre company). Planned and facilitated a Long Table discussion at the Bus Stop Theatre about the Halifax theatre community's needs and goals for the future, followed by a curated program of work-in-progress presentations from 8 local artists.

2019 New Conversations Program (2b theatre company). Coordinated an exchange between 2b and imitating the dog (Lancaster, UK). Planned public and private artistic exchange events in Halifax.

2015 Camp WordsWorth Instructor (Writer's Guild of Alberta). Taught two week-long workshops on playwriting through improvisation to youth aged 12-19. Walker CV – pg. 4 AWARDS

2019 National Theatre School Ada Slaight Award for Excellence and Leadership in English & French. 2019 Premium Content shortlisted for the Writers' Guild of Alberta Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award. 2019 Particle # B winner of weekly Best Circus Show Award at Fringe World Perth, Australia. 2018 The Big Ship overall winner of the Playwrights Guild of Canada's RBC Emerging Playwright Award. 2018 The Big Ship longlisted for the Theatre503 Playwriting Award (London, UK).. 2018 Pink Moon second runner up in the Toronto Fringe New Play Contest. 2017 Pink Moon 1st place winner of the Wildfire National Playwriting Competition. 2017 Premium Content shortlisted in the Alberta Playwrights Networks' Alberta Playwriting Competition. 2016 One of Us Must Know named Best Physical Theatre Show of the Edmonton Fringe by Gig City.

MEMBERSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS

Full member, Playwrights Guild of Canada Artistic Co-Producer, Strange Victory Performance Associated Artist, Major Matt Mason Collective 2019-2020 RBC Emerging Artist-in-Residence, 2b theatre company 2019-2020 Cole Foundation Emerging Translator, Playwrights' Workshop Montréal

REFERENCES

Christian Barry Artistic Co-Director, 2b theatre company [email protected]

Andrea Romaldi Director of the Playwriting Program, National Theatre School of Canada [email protected]

Marcus Youssef Senior Artist, Neworld Theatre [email protected]

Colleen Murphy Playwright [email protected]