Michel Marc Bouchard

Background

Michel Marc Bouchard was born on February 2, 1958 in Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, Quebec, Canada.

Education

Michel Marc Bouchard holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Ottawa.

Career

After graduating from Université d'Ottawa in theatre studies, Michel Marc Bouchard worked in various Franco-Ontarian theatres as dramaturge and actor. His first play, Les Porteurs d'eau, was staged by the Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario in Sudbury in 1981, followed by La Contre-Nature de Chrysippe Tanguay, écologiste (1983), which attracted much positive attention from critics. It portrays a homosexual couple in confrontation with society's traditional norms as they seek to adopt a child.

Bouchard's greatest success to date came with Les Feluettes (1987), translated as Lilies (1988) and now considered one of the major works of modern Canadian theatre (it won both the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Chalmers Award for Best Play in 1991).

Bouchard is the author of more than 20 plays, most of which have been produced professionally. Most notable are La Poupée de Pélopia (1984), Les Muses orphelines (1988), which completed a 9-week tour of Québec in 1995-96, and the political allegory Le Voyage du Couronnement (1995). Le Chemin des Passes-Dangereuses received mixed reviews on its performance in Montréal in February/March 1998, but two years later his 25th play, Sous le regard des mouches, described by the author as "a philosophical tale on the topic of death," enjoyed a more positive reception.

Bouchard was artistic director of Ottawa's Trillium Theatre from 1989 to 1991 and was an author-in-residence at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde from 1994 to 1995.

Achievements

• Michel Marcel Bouchard has been the recipient of numerous awards, including, in June 2012, the prestigious the National Order of Quebec for his contribution to Quebec culture, and, in 2005, the Order of Canada. He has also received le Prix Littéraire du Journal de Montréal, Prix du Cercle des critiques de l'Outaouais, the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, and the Chalmers Award for Outstanding New Play.
  
  In 1996 his play Lilies was produced as the movie Lilies by John Greyson. In 2013 his play Tom at the Farm was adapted as a film by Xavier Dolan.

Works

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  • Tom at the Farm

    (Following the accidental death of his lover, and in the t...)

    2004
  • The Madonna Painter

    (At the end of the Great War, to protect his village from ...)

    2010
  • Down Dangerous Passes Road

    (Fifteen years to the day after the death of their father,...)

    1998
  • Lilies

    (A revival of a romantic drama, Simon Doucet re-enacts for...)

    1987
  • Heat Wave

    (Michel Marc Bouchard's Heat Wave tells the story of a fam...)

    1993
  • Christina, The Girl King

    (Michel Marc Bouchard’s latest play tells the story of Que...)

    2014
  • Written on Water

    (Torrential rains have descended upon a small isolated vil...)

    2004
  • The Orphan Muses

    (The Orphan Muses is a devilishly funny play about four wa...)

    1989
  • The Tale of Teeka

    (Rural Quebec in the fifties. A battered child, Maurice, h...)

    1991
  • The Divine: A Play for Sarah Bernhardt

    (Quebec City, 1908. Two priests-to-be are ordered to deliv...)

    2013
  • La Contre Nature de Chrysippe Tanguay Ecologiste

    (French Edition)

    1984
  • The Coronation Voyage

    (May 1953. The Empress of France sets sail from Montreal. ...)

    1995

Membership

Michel Marc Bouchard is a member of the Académie des Lettres du Québec and Société de l'Ordre du Bleuet.

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2010
• The official website of Michel Marc Bouchard