Michael O'Brien

James McKinnon (Victoria University of Wellington)

Ed. by Glen Nichols, Mount Allison University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

Born 1965
Activity 1991-ongoing

Places

Born in Canada
Active in Canada; United States

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist
Theatre Director

Resources

O’Brien's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Canadian playwright Michael O'Brien was born in 1965 on Salt Spring Island, in British Columbia, Canada. He grew up in Ontario, Canada and London, England, and is a citizen of both Canada and the United States. After graduating from the University of Ottawa in 1987 with an Honours BA in Theatre and English, he was accepted into Canada's National Theatre School in Montreal, Quebec, where he trained as a playwright and director. A prolific writer, O'Brien has written 17 plays for stage and radio since 1991. A number of his works have been nominated for major awards, most notably

Mad Boy Chronicle

, a radical adaptation of

Hamlet

, which was short-listed for the 1996 Governor-General's Literary Award for Drama, Canada's highest literary honour.

O'Brien is a versatile dramatist who

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980 words

Citation: McKinnon, James. "Michael O'Brien". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 April 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11708, accessed 25 November 2024.]