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David Yee

Playwright / Screenwriter

David Yee is a mixed race (half Chinese, half Scottish) playwright and actor, born and raised in Toronto. He is the co-founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Theatre Company, Canada’s premiere professional Asian Canadian theatre company. A Dora Mavor Moore Award nominated actor and playwright, his work has been produced internationally and at home. He is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award nominee for his plays Lady in the Red Dress and Carried Away on the Crest of a Wave, which won the award in 2015 along with the Carol Bolt Award in 2013. In 2023 he was named Laureate of the prestigious Siminovitch Prize in Theatre for his groundbreaking work in playwriting. He currently teaches playwriting at the University of Toronto and works extensively in the Asian Canadian community as an artist and an advocate.

Works by David Yee

acts of faith

By David Yee

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among men

By David Yee

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carried away on the crest of a wave

By David Yee

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lady in the red dress

By David Yee

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Published Works

Difficult to pin down, he moves deftly from the traditional stage to hybrid digital-theatre, from intimate performances for a single audience member in a moving vehicle to mainstage epics. He’s not afraid to tell the stories of communities, to mash genres, to press poetry up against the ridiculous and to put outrage in close conversation with magic. It’s never the same twice, and yet it’s immediately recognizable: that combination of swagger and sweetness, of the very funny and the pissed off, is the distinctive voice of David Yee.

2023 Siminovitch Prize Jury Chair
Guillermo Verdecchia

If 7 Wonders of Theatre existed, playwright David Yee would rank 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

TorontoStage.com