Anna Chatterton

Collective Creation
Drama
New Play
Opera
Play Writing
Subgenres of Opera
Writing Workshop

BIO

Anna Chatterton is a playwright, librettist and actor. She is the 2024-2025 Mabel Pugh Taylor Writer-in-Residence at the Hamilton Library/McMaster University and a Creator in Residence at Theatre Aquarius. She is a two-time finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and has been produced across Canada and the United States. Her published works includes Within the Glass (Scirocco Drama); Quiver (Playwrights Canada Press); Cowgirl Up (Scirocco Drama); Gertrude and Alice (Playwrights Canada Press); a libretto included in the anthology When Words Sing (Playwrights Canada Press) and upcoming Children of Fire (Book*Hug Press). She is the winner of a City of Hamilton Arts Award, a Toronto Theatre Critics Award, and been nominated for five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, winning the 2018 Outstanding Production of an Opera. Anna’s work as a librettist has won an LA Independent Women Film Award for ‘Best Narrative Feature and the Opera America Artistic Creation Award (Sweat) and been nominated for a JUNO award (Breathe). Anna has been in residence at seven theatres and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Read more at annachatterton.com

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

I am a Hamilton-based writer and performer who often works collaboratively across cultures and disciplines. I love the process of wrestling with an artistic challenge through the lens of diverse experiences and voices, creating a work that is greater than the sum of its parts. I am constantly seeking new ways to frame theatrical performances and explore the possibilities of language on stage.

Allyship has become a priority for my collaborations. Projects currently in development include a new dance/theatre performance Visible (Invisible) Andal with choreographer/dancer Deepti Gupta, fusing Kathak rhythms and original English text; co-writing a play O.A. with theatre maker Karen Ancheta, about a Filipino family grappling with an aging mother with dementia (part of being Creator-in-Residence at Hamilton's Theatre Aquarius); Co-writing a new play Girl's Don't Die Here with multidisciplinary artist and activist Shahrzad Arshadi about the stories of imprisoned Iranian women during the 1988 massacre of over 14,000 political prisoners. These projects give me access to perspectives I would never find on my own, and pushes me into unfamiliar creative places, posing challenging artistic questions, and opening up complex and fruitful discussions with my collaborators.

My desire to find new approaches to creation has led my practice to investigate formal experiments within a collaborative process, one that brings out shared curiosities and explores new ways of telling stories.

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BIO

Anna Chatterton is a playwright, librettist and actor. She is the 2024-2025 Mabel Pugh Taylor Writer-in-Residence at the Hamilton Library/McMaster University and a Creator in Residence at Theatre Aquarius. She is a two-time finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and has been produced across Canada and the United States.  Her published works includes Within the Glass (Scirocco Drama); Quiver (Playwrights Canada Press); Cowgirl Up (Scirocco Drama); Gertrude and Alice (Playwrights Canada Press); a libretto included in the anthology When Words Sing (Playwrights Canada Press) and upcoming Children of Fire (Book*Hug Press). She is the winner of a City of Hamilton Arts Award, a Toronto Theatre Critics Award, and been nominated for five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, winning the 2018 Outstanding Production of an Opera. Anna’s work as a librettist has won an LA Independent Women Film Award for ‘Best Narrative Feature and the Opera America Artistic Creation Award (Sweat) and been nominated for a JUNO award (Breathe). Anna has been in residence at seven theatres and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Read more at annachatterton.com

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

Allyship has become a priority for my collaborations. Projects currently in development include a new dance/theatre performance Visible (Invisible) Andal with choreographer/dancer Deepti Gupta, fusing Kathak rhythms and original English text; co-writing a play O.A. with theatre maker Karen Ancheta, about a Filipino family grappling with an aging mother with dementia (part of being Creator-in-Residence at Hamilton's Theatre Aquarius);  Co-writing a new play Girl's Don't Die Here with multidisciplinary artist and activist Shahrzad Arshadi about the stories of imprisoned Iranian women during the 1988 massacre of over 14,000 political prisoners. These projects give me access to perspectives I would never find on my own, and pushes me into unfamiliar creative places, posing challenging artistic questions, and opening up complex and fruitful discussions with my collaborators.