If We Were Birds is a shocking, uncompromising examination of the horrors of war, giving voice to a woman long ago forced into silence, and placing a spotlight on millions of female victims who have been silenced through violence. A deeply affecting and thought-provoking re-imagining of Ovid's masterpiece "Tereus, Procne, and Philomela," Erin Shields's award-winning play is an unflinching commentary on contemporary war and its aftermath delivered through the lens of Greek tragedy.

Erin Shields is a Montreal based playwright. Her most recent play, Paradise Lost, premiered at the Stratford Festival in 2018. It won the Quebec Writers’ Federation Prize for Playwriting and was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. Erin won the 2011 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama for her play If We Were Birds, which premiered at Tarragon Theatre and has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Albanian. Other theatre credits include: The Lady from the Sea (The Shaw Festival), The Millennial Malcontent and Soliciting Temptation (Tarragon Theatre), The Angel and the Sparrow (The Segal Centre) and Montparnasse (Groundwater Productions), Instant (Geordie Productions, Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding TYA Production, Montreal English Theatre Award for Outstanding New Text), Mistatim (Red Sky Performance), and Unit B1717 (Théâtre á Corps Perdus). In May, 2019, Erin’s play Beautiful Man will play at Factory Theatre.

Erin Shields' profile page

• Winner, Governor General's Literary Award for Drama

"Anyone doubting the relevance and primal pull of myth needs to see If We Were Birds. Scratch that. Anyone interested in powerful theatre should see it." —Glenn Sumi, NOW Magazine

"The writing is both poetic and muscular, the images are vivid, breathtaking, and heart-squeezing… pulsing with life and emotions." —Lynn Slotkin, Here and Now, CBC Radio