Artistic associations

Associate Playwright

A graduate of the playwriting program of the National Theatre School of Canada, Martin Bellemare received the 2009 Prix Gratien-Gélinas for Le Chant de Georges Boivin. He received a creative assistance grant from CNT/ARTCENA for La Liberté, Moule Robert (Bourse CNL, finalist for the Prix de la dramaturgie francophone de la SACD 2017, Prix Michel-Tremblay 2018), Maître Karim la perdrix (Prix de la dramaturgie francophone de la SACD 2018), and for the play for young audiences Charlie et le Djingpouite (finalist for the Prix Louise-Lahaye 2020). He has led workshops and attended writing residencies in West Africa, Québec, and Europe, including Poland, where he wrote three short plays for the DramEducation francophone project “10 sur 10.” He was a finalist for the 2020 Siminovitch Prize, which celebrates excellence and innovation in contemporary Canadian theatre. His play Coeur minéral received the 2020 Governor General’s Award. His plays are read and performed in West Africa, Canada, and Europe, and are published by Dramaturges Éditeurs and Lansman.

Photo : Francis-William Rhéaume

Associate Playwright

After she graduated from the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada, Marie-Hélène Larose-Truchon won the “theatre for young audiences and new generation” competition. Her plays Minuit (Leméac) and Un Oiseau m’attend were nominated for the Prix Gratien-Gélinas. She received the Prix Gratien-Gélinas in 2021 for her play Le Jardin d’Éden. She is also the author of the plays for young audiences Crème-Glacée and Amande-Amandine, both published by L’Arche Éditeur.

Her most recent play, La nuit du caribou, was performed in Bonaventure in summer 2022. Her plays have been produced by Le Petit Théâtre de Sherbrooke, Le Double Signe, Théâtre la Seizième, and Théâtre de la Petite Marée, and in France by Théâtre en scène and L’insomniaque cie. She teaches a writing workshop at the National Theatre School of Canada.

Photo : Jessica Garneau

Associate author

A graduate of the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal, Mathieu Gosselin has made a name for himself on the cultural scene as an actor and playwright. In 2023, he received the Governor General’s Award in the theatre category for his play Gros gars. He wrote Fête sauvage, in which he also played several roles. He is also the author of Mélodie dépanneur and Province, and co-author, with Mani Soleymanlou, of Ils étaient quatre.

Matheiu has played in the province’s major theatres, including Le Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, La Licorne, Espace libre, Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Théâtre La Chapelle, and Théâtre de Quat’sous. He also collaborated with Théâtre de la Pire Espèce for Ubu sur la table and Persée, which he also co-wrote. He appeared in J’aime Hydro, both on stage and in the video and audio versions. On television, he has been featured in various series (Série noire, Le Phoenix, C’est pour ça que je t’aime et M’entends-tu?) and in the popular film Starbuck, directed by Ken Scott.

Photo : David Ospina

Director, actor, and creator Émanuel Frappier is a multitalented artist who wants art to be accessible. A 2024 graduate of the directing program at the National Theatre School of Canada, Émanuel had a chance to work on a striking monologue by the Belgian author Céline Delbecq, À cheval sur le dos des oiseaux, and on the play Une famille heureuse by Spanish author Javier Hernando Herraez.

Also a 2017 graduate of the performance program at the Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe theatre school, Émanuel has performed in shows for young audiences, including Le Scriptarium, Le diable est dans les détails, Hégémonie, Iris en été, Péremption(s), Moi c’est moi, and Top net. As a director, he revived David Pacquet’s play 2h14 and directed a reading of Laurie Léveillé’s Comme un poison dans l’aube.

Émanuel wants to explore different styles and aesthetics and dreams of directing plays from different repertoires as well as the classics, for all types of audiences. Pleasure and folly are his greatest creative forces.

Photo : Maxime Côté

For more than fifteen years, Anne-Marie Guilmaine has been developing a playwriting practice incorporating performance, visual installation, and relational art. With the interdisciplinary theatre company Système Kangourou, which she co-founded with Claudine Robillard, she creates shows rooted in the encounter between performer and audience. She is interested in particularly in casting people who share their own stories within scores that interweave multi-layered actions and images.

She was co-director of the theatrical concert Chansons pour le musée by Karine Sauvé and David Paquet, for children eight years and up, and acted as dramaturg for its different editions. She also directed Amélie Dumoulain’s Colis #2021-22, a touring short show by Le Petit Théâtre de Sherbrooke, presented in elementary schools.

Anne-Marie, who holds MAs in theatre and literature, is interested in approaches grounded in reality and sensitively open to the other. She tries to initiate or guide unusual creative processes that capture the spirit of the present and combine art and life.

Photo : Julie Artacho

A graduate of the Conservatoire d’Art dramatique de Québec, Marie-Christine Lê-Huu divides her time among writing, performing, and directing. The lines of tension that underlie her work are the relationship between memory and forgetting and the foundations of individual and collective identity. She has been nominated for the Gala des Masques and the Governor General’s Awards. Recently, her play Fils de quoi?, about intergenerational transmission in an immigration context, earned the APTQ’s award for best play for young audiences. Currently, Marie-Christine is working on the project Oiseau, which explores the constrictive nature of social norms, and is finishing writing a one-person show for actor Annie Darisse. After she wrote Je cherche une maison qui vous ressemble, a play that was produced in 2018 on the initiative of Catherine Allard, she and Catherine began to share artistic direction of Autels particuliers, which they founded together.

She made her debut in theatre in 1994, after she took acting workshops with Marcià de Castro at the Centre Culturel Français in Dakar. In 1997, she received a scholarship from the Coopération Française for a year studying at the Dadka Riaskova theatre school in Paris. When she returned to Dakar, she created Côté Jardin, a theatre company for young audiences and the first clown theatre company in Senegal. In 2005, she and her husband, Alessandro Fanni, created the DJARAMA association and an art centre for young people for research, training, and production in the circus arts, theatre, and puppetry in Ndayane, near Toubab Dialaw and 50 kilometres from Dakar. The venue includes a 150-seat theatre, a community school, and an orchard. Since 2013, DJARAMA has organized the DJAM’ART international puppetry festival in Senegal, dedicated to street children. Today, she is artistic director of the Pôle culturel Djaram’Arts, a director, and a trainer for theatre for young audiences. She continues to write, produce, and play for children the world over.

A Québec Afrofeminist and an ex-patriate born in the Congo, Marie Louise Bibish Mumbu is a playwright who works in the Montréal theatre sector through popular education and decolonization of imaginations. She collaborates with artists, theatres, festivals, universities, community centres, and cultural centres, which give her the space and the opportunity to establish her voice and tell (her) stories. She co-wrote Bongo Té, Tika!, with Angèle Séguin; Home Dépôt, with Anne-Sophie Rouleau; Jusqu’où te mènera Montréal?, with Martin Faucher and Marcelle Dubois; Vendre ou rénover at the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui; and many other projects.

Marie Louise has participated in Montréal and international events such as the FTA, La Journée internationale du théâtre; Dramaturgies en Dialogues; Jamais Lu; Le festival des francophonies in Limousin, France; Festival d’Avignon; La Rentrée littéraire in Bamako, Mali; and La Fête du livre in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Her novel Samantha à Kinshasa was adapted for the stage by Philippe Ducros as Bibish de Kinshasa. She starred in the show, telling her stories of other times, with fragrance and music.

Photo : Farah-Ruthnie Aladin-Delva

Karin Serres is an author, director, and set designer who lives in France. She has received grants from the Région IDF, the CNL, Artcena, and the Institut Français and has written more than 80 plays for children, teenagers, and adults, most of which have been published, produced, and translated. Favouring the disorientation of residencies both near and far, and loving the diversity of languages, she also writes radio plays, novels, and children’s books and seizes every opportunity to broaden her artistic horizons by intertwining her theatre work with other art fields, in France and elsewhere. Recognizing the strength of collective intelligence, she co-founded Les Coq Cig Gru and LABO/07, is a board member of Write Local, Play Global, and is on the editorial committee of Espace(s). This season, she is working specifically with La Loba (49), Entre Chien & Loup (71), Méta (64), and the Observatoire de l’Espace, the cultural laboratory for CNES. Her plays are published by Théâtrales, L’Ecole des Loisirs, Espaces 34, Lansman, and Actes Sud; her novels by Alma, Stock, Rouergue, and Typhon; and her children’s books by Rouergue, Cosmographe, Flammarion, Locus Solus.

Photo : © Bertrand Couderc

Based on her observations of nature, her readings, and her time spent with artists of all disciplines, Stéphanie focuses on humans’ relationship with the rest of the living world. Her paintings on canvas feature superimpositions of coloured, contrasting, and harmonious coloured marks inspired by the palettes and forms of territory around her. In her work, her techniques expand beyond painting to photographic transfer, embroidery, cyanotype, sewing, and collage.

Photo : Jeanne Rondeau-Ducharme

“I fell in love with freedom and vitality and something sort of sacred about the work of visual artist Stéphanie Robert – qualities that I also associate with childhood. Le Carrousel has commissioned 45 small works from Stéphanie that relate, in an abstract way, to the company’s artistic offerings. I’m happy with and proud of this artistic association, which opens up a new and hope-filled partnership.”

Marie-Eve Huot