IAN C. NELSON
Bilingual actor-director-dramaturge, Ian C. Nelson trained with Catherine Dasté in Paris and Wesley Balk in Minneapolis. He was the 1996 recipient of the Janet Laine-Green Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the development of theatre in Saskatchewan.
Ian has directed over 90 productions - seen literally from coast to coast
in Canada, in France and Norway - for the following companies: Saskatoon
Gateway Players, the Saskatoon Opera Association, Saskatoon Summer Players,
Prairie Opera, Co-Opera, Regina Summer Stage, Unithéâtre and
La Troupe du Jour. In 1990 his production of Daniel David Moses' Belle
Fille de L'Aurore represented Canada and North America at the I.A.T.A.
World Festival in Halden, Norway.
Recent directing credits include Al Pittman's West Moon, Cole Porter's
Anything Goes!, Molière's George Dandin and Fringe
productions of his own devising: Figar007 and Bitter Chocolate.
As an actor Ian has interpreted over 100 rôles including such classics
as George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf , Tartuffe, Pozzo
in En Attendant Godot/Waiting for Godot, Danton in La Mort de
Danton, and in 2001 Cyrano de Bergerac for which he won rave reviews.
Ian has originated roles in a number of world première
productions of Canadian plays: Boris Bruser in
Raisins and Almonds by Kim Morrisey; Paul
Hiebert in Sarah Binks, Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan by Ken Mitchell
and Doug Hicton (full-length and Fringe stage productions and CBC broadcasts);
Jérôme in the French version of Connie Kaldor's Dust & Dreams
(UniThéâtre, Edmonton and Le Cercle Molière, Winnipeg);
Prosper/Victor in Le Six/ Five Six Pick Up Sticks (bilingual co-production
by La Troupe du Jour and Dancing Sky Theatre); Hector in Le Costume (La Troupe
du Jour, Saskatoon and CNA, Ottawa).
For several years Ian has been a director/dramaturge in the workshopping
of new French scripts for the Festival de la Dramaturgie des Prairies in
Saskatoon and Edmonton. In 2001 his own play Le Sablier (under his
French nom de plume Christian de Nesle) was workshopped at this festival
and broadcast by Radio Canada. Ian's bilingual playing script of
Scapin! (combining the original text of Molière with a new
English translation by David Edney) is available through PUC.
Ian's play Double Blind, written in collaboration with Kevin Power,
is slated for the 2003 Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre's Spring Festival
of New Plays.
Ian is also a veteran adjudicator of theatre festivals for both Theatre
Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Drama Association.
Contact : Ian C. Nelson ian.nelson@usask.ca