Ric Knowles

Ric Knowles works as a scholar, editor, director, and dramaturg. He is author of The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies (1999), Shakespeare and Canada (2004), Reading the Material Theatre (2004), Remembering Women Murdered by Men (with the Cultural Memory Group, 2006), Theatre & Interculturalism (2010), How Theatre Means (2014), Fundamentals of Directing (2015), Performing the Intercultural City (2017), and International Theatre Festival and 21st-Century Interculturalism (2022).

 

                                                                 

 

His edited books include Theatre in Atlantic Canada (1988), Staging Coyote’s Dream: An Anthology of First Nations Drama in English (two volumes, with Monique Mojica, 2003 and 2009), Modern Drama: Defining the Field (with Joanne Tompkins and W.B. Worthen, 2003), Judith Thompson (2005), The Masks of Judith Thompson (2006), Shakespeare’s Comedies of Love (with Karen Bamford, 2008),The Shakespeare’s Mine: English Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare (2009), "Ethnic,” Multicultural, and Intercultural Theatre (with Ingrid Mündel, 2009), Asian Canadian Theatre (with Nina Lee Aquino, 2011), Afrika, Solo: Three AfriCanadian Plays (2011) Performing Indigeneity (with Yvette Nolan, 2016), and The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals (2020).

 

                                                               

                                               

                             

Ric is a former editor of Theatre Journal (2011-15), Modern Drama (1999-2005) and Canadian Theatre Review (1996-2010). He has been the editor of two book series, Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English (21 volumes, 2005-2012) and New Essays on Canadian Theatre (6 vols, 2011-2016), was Managing Editor of Essays in Theatre and Theatre Research in Canada, and is a board member for ten journals and two book series. He has delivered invited major papers throughout Canada and the United States, the UK and Ireland, Europe, India, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. He was the founding President of Playwrights Canada Press, a founding member of the board of Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble, a founding member of the board and jury of the WuChien Michael Than foundation, and a member of the board of Aluna Theatre. He has been Vice President of The Canadian Association for Theatre Research, the American Society for Theatre Research, and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. He was Chair of Drama at the University of Guelph from 1989-96.  From 2010-12 Ric was an invited member of the first Humanities taskforce for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), and in 2013-14 and 2017 was an invited Fellow at the International Research Institute, "Interweaving Performance Cultures" at the Freie Universitaet, Berlin.

 

As a professional dramaturge, Ric has worked over forty years with such companies as Aluna Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Cahoots Theatre Company, Carlos Bulosan Theatre, the Chocolate Woman Collective, Factory Theatre, fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre, the GOAT Collective, Live Bait Theatre, Modern Times Stage Company, MT Space Theatre, the Mulgrave Road Theatre, the National Arts Centre, Necessary Angel Theatre, Pleiades Theatre, the Red Snow Collective, the Stratford Festival, the Talking Stick Festival, Tarragon Theatre, theatre gargantua, Theatre Mada, Theatre Passe Muraille, Tottering Biped Theatre, the Under The Umbrella Collective, and Why Not Theatre (The Riser Project). Over the years he has worked on a number of funded new play development projects and served on many boards, juries, and organizing committees.

 

Ric's work has been recognized by a number of honours, awards, grants, prizes, and nominations, including nine major research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC); unsolicited entries in Canadian Who's Who since 2011; the Richard Plant Essay Prize (on three occasions), the Ann Saddlemyer Book Prize (twice), and the Patrick B. O'Neill Prize for Outstanding Edited Collection from the Canadian Association for Theatre Research; a Bronze Independent Publisher Book Award (Women's Issues); and the Excellence in Editing, Sustained Achievement Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. In 2009 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, in 2017 he was appointed University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, and also in 2017 was presented with a Lifetime Achievment Award from the Canadian Association for Theatre Research. In 2020 he was presented with the Distinguished Scholar Award by the American Society for Theatre Research, the Association's highest honour.

 

Ric's current research is on Canadian theatre, materialist and semiotic theory, and intercultural and Indigenous performance. His current SSHRC-funded project is on "International Theatre Festivals and the 21st-Century Traffic in Cultures."