Daniel MacIvor

Personal

MacIvor was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia and educated at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and then at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario. MacIvor is openly gay. He married Paul Goulet in 2006; they have since divorced.

Theatre

MacIvor started the theatre company da da kamera in Toronto - in residence at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre - for whom he has written, directed, and acted. His plays include Never Swim Alone, This is a Play, Monster, Marion Bridge, You are Here, Cul-de-sac, and A Beautiful View. Five of MacIvor's plays were published as I Still Love You in 2006, in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of da da kamera, (Never Swim Alone, The Soldier Dreams, You are Here, In on It, and A Beautiful View), and won MacIvor a coveted Governor General's Award for Drama.

Solo theatre work

MacIvor is particularly well known for a series of solo shows created in collaboration with director Daniel Brooks. These include House, Here Lies Henry, Monster and Cul-de-sac. These incorporate a minimalist and meta-theatrical style. In House and Here Lies Henry, MacIvor portrays one character who speaks directly to the audience, acknowledging their presence. While the direct address of the audience continues in Monster and Cul-de-sac, MacIvor portrays several characters throughout the course of the piece and this direct address is occasionally broken up by dialogue between these characters.

In 1992, 2-2 Tango was included in Making Out, the first anthology of Canadian plays by gay writers, alongside works by Ken Garnhum, Sky Gilbert, David Demchuk, Harry Rintoul and Colin Thomas.

The first three of these pieces were staged at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in the 2006/2007 season as part of a tribute and retrospective of da da kamera's work.

MacIvor and Brooks later collaborated with Iris Turcott to create the play Who Killed Spalding Gray?, in which MacIvor performs the part of a fictional character partly based on the style of deceased American actor Spalding Gray. The show premiered at the Halifax's Magnetic North Theatre Festival, and was later performed in Toronto at the Luminata Festival and at the High Performance Rodeo in Calgary

Film

In his early film work, MacIvor frequently collaborated with director Laurie Lynd, including on the short films RSVP in 1991, The Fairy Who Didn't Want to Be a Fairy Anymore in 1992, and the feature film House (1995).

In the early 2000's MacIvor wrote, co-wrote and directed several independent films, which were usually made in his home province of Nova Scotia. They include Past Perfect, Marion Bridge, Whole New Thing and Wilby Wonderful.

As an actor he appeared in Jeremy Podeswa's The Five Senses, had a recurring role in the television series Republic of Doyle and played Nathan in the iconic Canadian television series Twitch City. In recent years MacIvor has been working with director Bruce McDonald as screenwriter of the films Trigger and Weirdos (for which MacIvor won a Canadian Screen Award in 2017 for best original screenplay).

Awards and honors

In addition to winning the Governor General's Award for Drama in 2006, MacIvor has won other notable awards during his career.

Plays

In 1998, MacIvor won the award for overall excellence at the New York International Fringe Festival for his play Never Swim Alone.

In 2002, his play In On It earned him a GLAAD award and a Village Voice Obie Award.

In 2008, he was awarded the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre.

Selected theatre work