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Colleen Murphy

Colleen Murphy is a playwright, filmmaker and librettist, born in 1954 in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, raised in Northern Ontario, and now based in Toronto. Her play Pig Girl won the 2016 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama as well as the 2014 Carol Bolt Award. The December Man / L’homme de decembre won the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, the CAA/Carol Bolt Award and the Enbridge Playwrights Award. Other plays include Jupiter, The Society For The Destitute Presents Titus Bouffonius, The Breathing Hole (shortlisted for the Susan Blackburn Prize, U.S. and the Carol Bolt Award), Bright Burning, Armstrong’s War, The Goodnight Bird, Beating Heart Cadaver (shortlisted for the 1999 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama) The Piper and Down in Adoration Falling. Libretti include Oksana G., (c. Aaron Gervais) for Tapestry Opera (nominated for seven Dora Mavor Moore Awards), Bring Me The Head Of The President and My Mouth On Your Heart, (c. August Murphy-King) for Tapestry and Toy Piano Composers and Bicycle Opera, respectively. Her work about the Plains of Abraham, Geography of Fire / La Furie et sa geographie, features 19 actors and 12 life-sized papier-mache animals. Colleen is also an award-winning filmmaker and her films have played in festivals around the world. Colleen has been Writer-in-Residence at four theatres and six Canadian universities and Canadian Playwright-in-Residence at Finborough Theatre in London UK. In 2026, Colleen became a Member of the Order of Canada.

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Books by Colleen Murphy