Bio
Marcus’ fifteen plays include Winners and Losers, Leftovers, King Arthur’s Night, Jabber, The In-Between, How Has My Love Affected You?, Incognito Mode, Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, Everyone, Adrift, Peter Panties, Chloe’s Choice and A Line in the Sand. They have been performed at theatres and major international festivals across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia, including the Canadian Stage, Tarragon, Citadel, Arts Club, Factory, Theatre Passe Muraille, Citadel, Caravan Farm, the Dublin International Theatre Festival, Soho Repertory Theatre (Off-Broadway), Wooly Mammoth and the Kennedy Centre (Wash. DC), the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Festival Trans Amerique (Montreal), the PuSh Festival (Vancouver), Citadel, Noorderzon (Netherlands), Brighton Festival (UK), LOKAL (Reykjavik), Ca’ Foscari (Venice), Brno Festival (Czech), Foreign Affairs (Berlin), Aarhus Festival (Denmark), On the Boards (Seattle) and Magnetic North. His plays are published by Talonbooks and Playwrights Canada Press.
In 2017, Marcus received Canada’s most prestigious theatre award, the $100,000 Siminovitch Prize for Theatre, in recognition of his body of work as a playwright. Other awards Marcus has received include the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, the Rio-Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Chalmer’s Canadian Play Award, the Seattle Times Footlight Award, two Arts Club Silver Commissions, the Vancouver Critics’ Choice award (three times), the Canada Council Staunch-Lynton Award for career artistic excellence, as well as more than a dozen Jessie, Dora and META awards in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Over the years Marcus has also written for a half dozen shows on CBC Radio and Television, as well as freelance contributions to a wide variety of Canadian print and web-based publications, with bylines in the Georgia Straight, Vancouver Magazine, This Magazine, Rice Paper, the Tyee, Vanopolis and Canadian Theatre Review, among others.
From 2016-18, Marcus was Senior Playwright in Residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Playwrights Lab. He has also served as writer/artist in residence at Farnham Maltings (UK), the Sydney Festival (Australia), the National Theatre of School of Canada, Touchstone Theatre, Neworld Theatre and Carousel Theatre.
Marcus has been Artistic Director of Vancouver’s Neworld Theatre since 2005. He is the co-founder of the East Vancouver-based artist-run production studio PL1422 and former chair of its parent organization, Vancouver Creative Space. From 2015-18 Marcus was a Canadian Fellow the International Society of Performing Arts. From 2012-15 he was also the inaugural Chair of the city of Vancouver’s Arts and Culture Policy Council and for two years co-chaired the municipal political party the Coalition of Progressive Electors. Marcus is Editorial Advisor to Canadian Theatre Review and a consulting advisor for the National Arts Centre English Theatre. He teaches regularly at the National Theatre School of Canada, Studio 58 Langara College and the University of British Columbia.
