Carole Fréchette

Carole Fréchette, actress, playwright, critic, novelist (b in Montréal 26 July 1949). Carole Fréchette, one of Canada's leading women playwrights, studied acting at the National Theatre School before joining the Marxist feminist theatre collective, le Théâtre des Cuisines, in 1974. She worked with the group on the writing and staging of plays about abortion rights (Nous aurons les enfants que nous voulons, 1974) and women's domestic burdens (Môman travaille pas, a trop d'ouvrage, 1976, As-tu vu? Les maisons s'emportent!, 1981). Carole Fréchette's play, Les Quatre Morts de Marie (1998), won the Governor General's Award and the Chalmers Prize. In a burst of creativity, Carol Fréchette wrote 5 subsequent plays between 1998 and 2002: La Peau d'Élisa (1999), Les Sept Jours de Simon Labrosse (1999), Le Collier d'Hélène (2000), Jean et Béatrice (2002) and Violette sur la terre (2002). Her international reputation has been built by productions of her work not only in Canada but France, Belgium, Switzerland, Lebanon, and Syria. For her contribution to Canadian theatre, Fréchette received the prestigious Elinore and Lou Siminovitch Prize in 2002. Her theatrical universe is a bold one, her language rising to wild flights of poetry, her style ranging from gentle naturalism to outrageous surrealism. - The Globe and Mail