Nelson Gray is a playwright, poet, director, theatre scholar, and a professor in the English Department at Vancouver Island University. His writings for the stage, in particular his collaborations with director and choreographer Lee Eisler, have won numerous commissions and awards, and been produced in Canada, the U.S., England, and Germany. He was the co-founder, with Beth Carruthers, of the Songbird Project--one of the first eco-art projects in Canada to bring together the arts, sciences, and community activists--and his poetry and scholarly articles have appeared in several journals and anthologies. With the assistance of a Canada Council Award and a SHHRC Insight Development Grant, he is currently working on the libretto and pre-production for Here Oceans Roar, an eco-opera and film script based on his experiences as a salmon troller in the Pacific Northwest and incorporating oceanographic research from Ocean Networks Canada. Nelson has a BA (Hons) from Simon Fraser University, an MFA in Directing from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD in Theatre History from the University of Victoria. Marie Clements is an award-winning Métis performer, playwright and director whose work has been presented on stages across Canada, the United States and Europe. She is the founder of urban ink productions, a Vancouver-based First Nations production company that creates, develops and produces Aboriginal and multi-cultural works of theatre, dance, music, film and video. Clements was invited to the prestigious Festival de Theatre des Ameriques in 2001 for Urban Tattoo and in 2002 for Burning Vision. In 2002, she worked in the writing department of the television series Da Vinci's Inquest. A fellowship award from the BC Film Commission enabled her to develop the film adaptation of her stage play, The Unnatural and Accidental Women. She is also a regular contributor on CBC Radio. Clements writes, or, perhaps more accurately, composes, with an urbane, incisive and sophisticated intellect; her refined artistry is deeply rooted in the particulars of her place, time and history. The world premiere of Copper Thunderbird is the first time Canada's National Arts Centre has produced the work of a First Nations playwright on its main stage.
