Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski is an actor, sound designer, composer and writer. His greatest professional satisfaction comes from contributing to the development of new works, whether as a performer (The Hooves Belonged to the Deer, Tarragon Theatre; Every Day She Rose, Buddies in Bad Times), a designer (King Gilgamesh and the Man of the Wild, Soulpepper; Box 4901, Buddies in Bad Times), or a writer (Easy As Pie, co-written with James & Jamesy; (Saint) Joan, co-adapted with the company of Living Edge Theatre). He is also a familiar face on the summer stock circuit, with recent appearances at Theatre
Orangeville (Bed & Breakfast; Screwball Comedy), Port Dover’s Lighthouse Festival Theatre (Pinkerton Comes to Prospect; Murder at Ackerton Manor; Hurry Hard) and Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre (Christmastown).
Adrian is the winner of two Dora Awards for sound design, the most recent of which he shared with Moneka Arabic Jazz Band for their work on King Gilgamesh and the Man of the Wild. He was shortlisted for a 2022 Playwrights’ Guild of Canada Tom Hendry Award (Dan School of Music Award for New Musical Work) and nominated for the 2024 Louis Applebaum Composers’ Award (Theatre, Music Theatre, Opera and Dance).
Adrian is an avid crossword puzzle enthusiast, and a competitor in the 2025 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. He never really enjoyed cooking with onions until the past year, when he fell in love with it. He considers the broadening of one’s horizon’s to be the mark–and indeed, the duty–of an
enlightened adult.