Kate’s play The Last Wife had its world premiere in the 2015 Stratford Festival season. The Last Wife was shortlisted for the 2015 Carol Bolt Award. It has had more than ten productions across Canada and the United States. It premiered at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney, Australia in September 2019.
Her second play in the series, The Virgin Trial, premiered at Stratford, won the Carol Bolt Award for Best New Play 2017, and was short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. It has had subsequent productions in Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and San Diego.
Mother’s Daughter, which premiered at the Stratford Festival in June 2019, is the third in Kate’s cycle of plays about women and power, based on the rich and dramatic lives of the Tudor queens. It subsequently played at Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto.
Kate’s translation and adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac premiered at the Shaw Festival in 2019 and returned in 2022.
Kate adapted Oscar Wilde’s stories for children, Wilde Tales, which played to great critical success in the 2017 season at The Shaw.
Kate has been writing in one way or another for most of her life. Her writing includes plays, poetry, stories, articles for industry publications, a dissertation, two blogs, and a research paper.
Playwright
Kate has been a member of the Groundswell Playwrights Unit 2003 (More), Tarragon Playwrights Unit 2004 (More), the Banff Playwrights Colony 2007 (More) and 2008 (Waterworks), and The Leighton Artists’ Studios 2016, 2018, 2020
Her play, The Eleventh David was produced in August 2006 as part of the SummerWorks Festival, to great critical and audience acclaim. Kate has written a monologue for movement and voice called, The Penelope Principle. She has written two highly subscribed blogs documenting her acting experiences with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and with Billy Elliot: The Musical on Broadway. Her play Waterworks (now titled Drowning Out of Water) was given a reading at the Stratford Festival in 2012.
Kate’s writing has been funded by the Canada Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and by the Ontario Arts Council, and supported by The Banff Centre, Nightwood Theatre, the Tarragon Theatre, the Blyth Festival, the Grand Theatre, the Shaw Festival, the Stratford Festival, Theatre Aquarius, Theatre Passe Muraille, and Volcano.
Kate’s plays are published by Playwrights Canada Press. Click here to access her Playwrights Canada Press page.
Kate is a member of the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada.
Kate lives and writes in the beautiful town of Stratford, Ontario in Canada.