This collection seeks to understand why it is important not just to continue to tell queer stories on stage, but also to piece together the larger historical narrative of Canadian queer theatrical production and reception through academic research. Through these essays, artist reflections, and curatorial statements, the contributors generate theories and new ways of understanding how queer theatre and performance have contributed more broadly to the political and social development of LGBT2Q communities in Canada. Q2Q: Queer Canadian Theatre and Performance asks what a comparative analysis of contemporary queer performance practice in Canada can tell us about current appetites and potential future programming.

Peter Dickinson is a professor at Simon Fraser University, where he holds a joint appointment in the School for the Contemporary Arts and the Department of English. He is also Director of SFU’s Institute for Performance Studies and Associate Member of the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. Peter has published extensively on queer Canadian theatre and performance and his produced plays include The Objecthood of Chairs and Long Division.

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C.E. Gatchalian's profile page

Kathleen Oliver’s first play, Swollen Tongues, won the 1997 National Playwriting Competition and has been produced across Canada, in London, and (in a French translation) in Paris. Her other plays include Carol’s Christmas and The Family Way, which were both produced in Vancouver. Kathleen teaches English at Langara College in Vancouver and is a regular contributor to The Georgia Straight, where she has been writing about theatre for nearly twenty years. She lives in Vancouver with her partner and son.

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Dalbir Singh is a Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. He taught courses there as well as at the University of Waterloo and the University of Guelph. At Waterloo, he taught the first theatre course exclusively focused on racial identity and Canadian theatre. He has edited five collections of plays and critical essays on topics including Tamil culture and identity, post-?colonial theatre, South Asian Canadian drama, and queer Canadian theatre. As a result, he has published the work of such notable writers as Donna-?Michelle St. Bernard, Ravi Jain, Guillermo Verdecchia, Anusree Roy, and Yvette Nolan.

Dalbir Singh's profile page

• Winner, Patrick O’Neill Award