Coleen MacPherson

Coleen is an international theatre artist based in Toronto with training from École Jacques Lecoq in Paris. In 2014 she founded Open Heart Surgery, a company that creates original work inspired by great female voices, rooted in a devised and collaborative practice, where movement and the body is at the core of the process. She works as a playwright, director and voice artist and teaches Devised Theatre at the Randolph College for Performing Arts in Toronto, Canada.

Coleen has developed work in Canada with Bad New Days, Factory Theatre, Why Not Theatre, Theatre Smith-Gilmour, MT Space, Jumblies Theatre and Necessary Angel. She directed and conceptualized This Is Why We Live, a play inspired by the poems of Wisława Szymborska (Plateau 31, Paris; The Theatre Centre, Toronto; Nowy Teatr/OFF Miłosz Festival, Krakow, Poland) and soon this work will find its home at La MaMa as part of the 58th season. Internationally she has worked with Wet Picnic (UK), TinderBox (Northern Ireland), Théâtre de L’Enfumeraie (Alonnes, France) and Old Vic New Voices (UK). Her play First Draft held its European Premiere at Camden People’s Theatre (dir. Sarah Warren), Mimetic Festival in The Vaults (London, UK) and in Cairo, Egypt it was performed in Arabic and English (Falaki Theater/Studio ZAT). Coleen has also adapted The Hearing Trumpet for Dark Matters Theatre (Brighton Fringe, UK) and co-translated Pylade by Pier Paolo Pasolini with Adam Paolozza, which was performed by the Great Jones Repertory Company at La MaMa in 2015 (dir. By Ivica Buljan) and held a European tour. Coleen has toured work to China, Egypt, Poland, Spain, France, UK and U.S.A.

This is Coleen’s U.S. directing debut and she feels elated to be part of the La MaMa family.

UPCOMING: Assistant Directing Claudia Dey’s Trout Stanley (Factory Theatre, Toronto), writing a new work inspired by Glenn Gould at Factory Theatre (Toronto). Open Heart Surgery Theatre is currently developing Like A Messenger to the Deep, a play inspired by the works and life of Leonora Carrington with Martha Ross.
www.coleenmacpherson.com