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Diana Leblanc
Former head of Théâtre Français de Toronto, directs regularly at Stratford, has performed Michel Tremblay, directed Anouilh’s La Répétition (The Rehearsal) in both official languages.
ENGLISH La Maison Suspendue Bonjour, Là, Bonjour The Little Foxes Further Tales Of The City (TV)
FRENCH La Maison Suspendue Bonjour, Là, Bonjour La Voix Humaine
ON SWITCHING “Tremblay displays a brilliant use of idiomatic language. You miss a lot of that excitement in English translation.”
Tony Nardi
Trilingual, worked with Soulpepper, performed in Quebec films, speaks Italian, sometimes uses all three languages in screen work.
ENGLISH The Lesson La Ronde A Flea In Her Ear
FRENCH Les Guerriers Eddy La Déroute (film) La Sarrazine (film)
ON SWITCHING “The rhythm of each language is related to how people think and behave. You can’t switch into another language unless you understand that particular thinking and behaviour.”
John Dolan
Worked at Stratford, Young People’s Theatre, currently flips back and forth between both languages in Tarragon’s Plan B.
ENGLISH Twelfth Night Inherit The Wind Oliver Twist Trudeau And The FLQ
FRENCH Les Fantastiques Le Médecin Volant Les Précieuses Ridicules
ON SWITCHING LANGUAGES “Working on Plan B, I find myself having the same little brain farts I did while growing up in Quebec City.”
John Gilbert
Performed at Théâtre Français and Stratford, used both languages in the movie Eclipse, currently in Factory Theatre’s Slip Knot.
ENGLISH A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard II A Christmas Carol
FRENCH L’Ecole Des Femmes Les Précieuses Ridicules Vu D’ailleurs (film) Le Roi De Paris (film)
ON SWITCHING “After I’d done a French piece, an English director asked me why I was waving my arms around so much. It was because in French the body suddenly becomes more expansive.”
Marie-Josée Lefebvre
Writer/performer, had a hit with Au Country Road (SummerWorks), in which two characters move back and forth between English and French.
ENGLISH The Death Of General Wolfe The Two Noble Kinsmen Oui I Was A Sixth-Grade Alien (TV)
FRENCH Au Country Road Picoli Et Lirabo (TV)
ON SWITCHING “Au Country Road’s more a French play than an English one, since it captures the way my relatives speak in northern Ontario, adopting a lot of English words but keeping French construction.”
