The daughter of director John Wright and novelist L.R. “Bunny” Wright, Johnna grew up and began her career in Western Canada. In 1990 she and her sister, actor/producer Katey Wright, were co-founders of Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival (now Canada’s largest Shakespeare festival outside of Stratford). Johnna’s most recent project with Bard on the Beach is directing Much Ado About Nothing (2025).
Johnna is a two-time recipient of Vancouver’s Jessie Richardson Awards for both Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production, as well as other directing awards. Past projects include The Rivals (Blackbird Theatre, Vancouver) and Tomson Highway’s The (Post) Mistress (Gordon Tootoosis Nīkānīwin Theatre, Saskatoon).
With collaborator Aaron Bushkowsky, Johnna co-founded and ran Vancouver’s Solo Collective Theatre, premiering more than 25 new works by Western Canadian playwrights over nine years. As a dramaturg, she has supported the development of dozens of Canadian plays and playwrights, including Kenneth T. Williams, Nathan Howe, Christina Cook, Natalie Meisner and Lorena Gale. She also works as an editor for fiction and memoir.
Patty and Johnna’s next play, The Three Musketeers, is now in development. Johnna also wrote The Suspect, an adaptation of her mother’s novel of the same name (now also adapted as the television series Murder in a Small Town).
With the many complex challenges faced by live performance in recent years, Johnna believes more than ever in the power of theatre to change the way we see the world, and in the need for audiences to have that experience together.
