Julie Tepperman

Julie Tepperman is a Dora nominated and published playwright, Dora award-winning actor, and avid arts educator. She is the co-Artistic Leader of Convergence Theatre, with Aaron Willis.

Julie’s work as a playwright ranges from full-length plays, one acts, and shorts, as well as books for musicals and librettos for operas. She has a particular interest in writing plays with site-specific intentions, as well as creating one-on-one encounters in unique and intimate settings. 

Julie has received several Toronto and Ontario Arts Council playwriting grants, as well as a Canada Council for the Arts grant which funded her Playwriting Residency at Theatre Passe Muraille, where she largely developed her play YICHUD (Seclusion).  She was invited to participate in The Stratford Festival’s 2017 Playwrights’ Retreat, and was one of a handful of Canadian playwrights selected to participate in The Musical Stage Company’s programs NoteWorthy & ReFramed, and Tapestry Opera’s LibLab. Julie’s work is published with Playwrights Canada Press.

Julie is also an actor, and has performed with indie theatres across Toronto, including:  The Theatre Centre, Crow’s Theatre, Outside the March, Precisely Peter Productions, Binocular Theatre (to name a handful), as well as several Fringe/Next Stage Festival productions, and two seasons at The Stratford Festival, where she is a graduate of The Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre Training, and a regular teaching artist.

Julie has written several articles for The Canadian Theatre Review, was a co-producer for the political pop-up event The Wrecking Ball for three years (including lead-producing an evening dedicated to renowned playwright Edward Bond, at which he was present). She was Board President of Generator for three years, and is a proud recipient of a Harold Award for her work in indie theatre.

Julie continues to be a teaching artist with The Stratford Festival, is a guest artist in high schools for school boards across Ontario, and is a regular arts educator & youth mentor with the Luminato and Paprika Festivals. She is also a guest teacher at Ryerson University's ACT II Studio, The University of Toronto’s Continuing Education Program (where she teaches Intro to Playwriting), Humber College, and George Brown Theatre School, where she herself is a graduate. 

NOW Magazine selected Julie as an “Artist to Watch” in their August 8, 2019 issue for her SummerWorks installation Worry Warts.

Credits

For Convergence Theatre, Julie has written: 

• The Corona Variations - a cycle of six short plays that are performed over the phone, set in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. (April & May, 2020)

• The Unending (The Stronger, adapted from the Strindberg; and What Doesn’t Kill You…; The National Post & Slotkin Letter “Best Production” of 2016)

• YICHUD (Seclusion) – published by Playwrights Canada Press (two sold-out runs at Theatre Passe Muraille; one of NOW Magazine’s Top Ten Productions of 2010; was the headlining production for the 2011 Magnetic North Theatre Festival where it received a Capital Critics’ Circle Award nomination for “Best Production”)

• The Gladstone Variations (I Grow Old; Dora nomination for Outstanding New Play; one of NOW Magazine’s Top Ten Productions of 2007 and the Decade)

• AutoShow (Rosy; one of NOW Magazine’s Top Ten Productions of 2006)

Other Selected Playwriting credits: 

• Hook Up (with composer Chris Thornborrow; commissioned and produced by Tapestry Opera at Theatre Passe Muraille; Dora nomination for Oustanding New Opera)

• The Preposterous Predicament of Polly Peel (with composer Kevin Wong; commissioned by The Musical Stage Company / a Dan Fund project; Awarded “Patrons’ Pick” and “Best Musical” in NOW’s 2018 “Fringe Wrap-Up”; recipient of the 2018 Paul O’Sullivan Prize and the 2018 Playwrights Guild of Canada Tom Hendry Prize)

• Basic (for fu-GEN Theatre’s Fearless – short plays for one actor and one driver in a car)

• Bandits in the Valley (Tapestry Opera; site-specifically written for Todmorden Mills)

• Brantwood – an epic immersive choose-your-own adventure that takes place in an actual high school (co-written and co-directed with Mitchell Cushman; produced by Sheridan’s Canadian Musical Theatre Project; winner of the 2015 Jon Kaplan Audience Choice Dora Award)

• Tease – a one-on-one experience at Jilly’s (as part of Crows’ East-end Performance Arts Crawl)

• The Father – a re-imagining of the Strindberg original (Winnipeg Jewish Theatre / Manitoba Theatre Centre’s Master Playwright Festival)

• What Ever Happened to Jimmy Stagler? (Nuit Blanche, inspired by the Charles Bukowski short story “The Star”)

Selected Acting credits: 

• Radiant Vermin (Precisely Peter Productions)

• The Unending (Convergence Theatre/Toronto Fringe)

• Still (Binocular Theatre)

• Tease (Crows’ East-end Performance Arts Crawl)

• Passion Play (Convergence/Outside the March/Sheep No Wool; Dora Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble)

• Mr. Marmalade (Outside The March)

• The Under Room (a reading as part of The Edward Bond Festival)

• Out The Window (Theatre Centre)

• YICHUD (Seclusion) (Convergence/Next Stage/Theatre Passe Muraille/ Magnetic North)

• Seneca’s Oedipus (a workshop production at Equity Showcase Theatre)

• AutoShow (Convergence/Toronto Fringe)

• The Swanne – Part Two (The Stratford Festival)

• The House of Atreus Trilogy: Agamemnon, Electra and The Flies (The Stratford Festival)

• All’s Well That Ends Well (The Stratford Festival)

• The Scarlett Pimpernel (The Stratford Festival)

• Measure For Measure (Shakespeare In The Rough)

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Stratford Conservatory & Equity Showcase Theatre)

Email Julie

As an actor, Julie is represented by Chris Oldfield at Oldfield: chris@oldfieldmanagement.com

As a playwright, Julie is represented by Colin Rivers at Marquis Entertainment:  colin@mqent.ca