Brigitte Haentjens is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 director and president of her own company, Sybillines, which she founded in 1997.

Biography

Born in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, she studied theatre in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 before moving to Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 in Canada at the age of 25.

Career

From 1982 to 1990, she was artistic director of the Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario

Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario

Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario is a Canadian professional theatre company. Located in Sudbury, Ontario, the company produces French language stage productions from this city for its community, for Ontario, for Canada and overseas too....

 in Sudbury, turning it into a major venue of Francophone Canadian theatre through her productions of works by playwrights such as Michel Marc Bouchard

Michel Marc Bouchard

Michel Marc Bouchard is a gay Canadian playwright.Born in Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, Quebec, he studied theatre at the University of Ottawa. Bouchard made his professional playwriting debut in 1983 and since then has written some 25 plays...

 and Jean-Marc Dalpé

Jean-Marc Dalpé

Jean Marc Dalpé is a Canadian playwright and poet. He is one of the most important figures in Franco-Ontarian literature....

. She also cowrote several works with Dalpé, including Nickel.

In 1990, she moved to Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, becoming artistic director of the Nouvelle Compagnie Théâtrale, in Montréal, from 1991 to 1994, and as co-director for the Carrefour International de Théâtre de Québec from 1996 to 2006. In addition to continuing to direct theatre for several companies in Montreal, she also directed at the National Arts Centre

National Arts Centre

The National Arts Centre is a centre for the performing arts located in Ottawa, Ontario, between Elgin Street and the Rideau Canal...

, in Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, founded her own company, Sybillines, in 1997, and, in October 2007, received the prestigious Elinor and Louis Siminovitch Prize in Theatre

Siminovitch Prize in Theatre

The Siminovitch Prize in Theatre is given to recognize achievement in Canadian theatre; specifically, professional directors, playwrights and designers in three-year cycles...

 for her 30-year career in Québec theatre.

External links

• Prix Siminovitch – Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Theatre Prize Official website. Accessed January 19, 2008. [Provides links to the press release about the 2007 award to Haentjens (in English), to the text of her acceptance speech (in English), and to a video about her work (in English with French subtitles).]
• "Sybillines" – Official website. Accessed January 18, 2008. (In French; includes biography.)
• "Haentjens" – A part of the Haentjens History Mai 28, 2008. (In French;)