A companion anthology to Canadian Performance Histories and Historiographies, Past Lives: Performing Canada’s Histories brings together plays that not only stage moments in Canada’s past but also act historiographically, generating new histories for the present moments at which they were written and performed.

This anthology represents a wide range of literary and performance practices—ranging from poetic tragedy, to radio drama, to Indigenous satire—and, because of its broad generic and historical scope, also serves as an excellent survey of Canadian dramatic literature from Confederation to the present.

Heather Davis-Fisch is Associate Professor of English and Theatre at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. Her research interests include performance historiography and Indigenous and intercultural performance, particularly in historical paradigms. She is the author of Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance: The Ghosts of the Franklin Expedition (Palgrave, 2012) and editor of Canadian Performance Histories and Historiographies (Playwrights Canada Press, 2017). Her work has also appeared in the journals Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Theatre Review, Performing Arts Resources, and Cultural Studies / Critical Methodologies, as well as in the books Theatres of Affect, Performance Studies in Canada, and Bloomsbury’s Cultural History of Theatre. She is the co-editor of Canadian Theatre Review’s Views and Reviews section.

Heather Davis-Fisch's profile page

• Commended, Patrick O'Neill Award