Silver Ticket Award Mentor
John Van Burek
director, producer, teacher, translator
Program areas: directing, artistic direction, producing, translation
John Van Burek was born in Toronto. At the age of 24 he learned French and has been working in both official languages ever since. In 1972 he launched and became the first Artistic Director of what has become Le Théâtre français de Toronto. In that year, he also began translating, from French to English, the plays of Michel Tremblay and with that, to help launch Tarragon Theatre. He has taught theatre at NTS, TMU (Ryerson), U of Victoria, York University, Nottingham School of Performing Arts (UK) and run extensive Outreach programmes at both TfT and Pleiades. In 1997 he launched Pleiades Theatre, devoted to the translation and production of plays from around the world.