Ms Kate Bligh, MA

School of Canadian Irish Studies
Kate Bligh has worked with playwrights and new plays throughout her career, and was awarded a prize by infini theatre in Montreal for her work in new play development.  She collaborates as a dramaturge with a number of Montreal-based playwrights. 

Past projects have included dramaturgy for Danser à Lughnasa (Dancing At Lughnasa) by Brian Friel at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde in Montreal, and professional engagements (either directing or teaching) with many Irish playwrights including Beckett, Shaw, Synge, and McDonagh. She has visited the North and South of Ireland in a professional capacity several times.

Kate teaches at Concordia University in the Departments of Theatre and English, offering a variety of subjects, from acting to playwrighting to Laban (movement) to Shakespeare.  Before moving to Canada she taught at Rada and Mountview in London, and at Birmingham University, in England, and Queen Margaret’s College in Edinburgh, Scotland. An immigrant to Quebec (twelve years ago) from England, Kate has an M.A. degree in theatre directing from the Drama Centre in London and the University of Birmingham.  She has been working, studying and creating in professional theatre for twenty-one years.

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Theatre

Kate Bligh is a director, dramaturge, writer, and teacher.  She has an M.A. degree in theatre directing from the Drama Centre in London and the University of Birmingham, UK. She has been working, studying and creating in professional theatre for twenty-eight years.  Post-colonialism and multiculturalism is a recurring theme in her artistic practice and teaching, where there is a particular emphasis on Irish drama.  She has worked with playwrights and new plays throughout her career, and was awarded a prize by infinitheatre for her work in new play development.

Kate is Artistic Director of the bilingual theatre company temenos; their most recent production The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh, performed at the Segal Studio Theatre.  Before this the company produced Le Songe / dreamplay, Bligh's own bilingual re-write of Strindberg's A Dream Play, which was performed at Théâtre La Chapelle in Montreal in December, 2004. In November 2003 the company produced Crave by Sarah Kane in the Studio Theatre of the Monument National. Their first project, xstasis, was a collaboration led by the UK based company optik that involved spontaneous movement, live video and improvised electro-acoustic music. Further information on all these projects may be found at www.temenos.ca

A part of the mandate of temenos is training emerging artists. To this end, Kate leads an ongoing research/workshops combining the performer training methods of Jerzy Grotowski with the movement analysis of Rudolph Laban. In 2007 she participated in workshops led by Rena Mireçka and Zygmunt Molik, two original members of Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre, and in 2009, temenos hosted Mireçka in Montreal for an edition of her workshop The Way (with a particular focus on the ritual and spiritual aspect of performance).

Kate's diverse projects have included dramaturgy for Danser à Lughnasa by Brian Friel at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde; the adaptation of a creole/french novel, Solibo Magnifique, into a two-man play; and the translation into English and adaptation of Baki and the Crocodiles, a franco-African play for children. She was the Artistic Director of the Black Theatre Workshop in Montreal from 1999 - 2001.