Draft:Sarah Garton Stanley

• Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest guideline, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. SarahGStanley (talk) 17:49, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

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Sarah Garton Stanley (credited professionally as SGS) is a Canadian theatre director, dramaturg, and public thinker. Over a four-decade career she has held artistic leadership roles at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the National Arts Centre, and Arts Commons (now the Werklund Centre), and co-founded the digital performance company spiderwebshow.ca. She currently works as a freelance director and dramaturg.

Sarah Garton Stanley
Born	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Other name	SGS
Alma mater	Queen's University; Vancouver Film School
Occupations	Theatre director dramaturg producer
Years active	1985–present
Known for	Artistic leadership and dramaturgy in Canadian theatre
Awards	Elliott Hayes Award (LMDA); Manitoba Theatre Centre Award for Best Direction; CATR Honorary Member Award
Website	sarahgartonstanley.com

Early life and education

Stanley was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. She holds a BA (1986) and MA (2013) from Queen's University, and holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from Queen's. She also trained at Vancouver Film School and studied with Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

Career

Early career

In 1985, Stanley founded her first theatre company, Baby Grand Theatre, in Kingston, Ontario. She went on to co-create Women Making Scenes in Montreal and Die in Debt in Toronto, was a founder of Toronto's Harold Awards, and served as Associate Director at Factory Theatre. She later co-led the directing program at the National Theatre School of Canada alongside Chris Abraham, and has taught at Humber College, Vancouver Film School, McGill University, York University, and Concordia University, where she was an adjunct professor.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

From 1997 to 1999, Stanley was Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto, succeeding founder Sky Gilbert and becoming the company's first female artistic director; ...she was succeeded by David Oiye. She led the company through a period of financial strain across Toronto's theatre sector, established its Youth Program, and grew the Rhubarb and Strange Sisters festivals.

spiderwebshow.ca and FOLDA

Stanley was founding artistic director of spiderwebshow.ca from 2013 to 2017, described as Canada's first live-to-digital performance hybrid company, and co-founded the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) in 2018. In April 2020, the organization's digital collaboration work was covered in the Toronto Star as Canadian artists turned to remote methods during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

National Arts Centre

Stanley joined the National Arts Centre in 2012 as Associate Artistic Director of English Theatre alongside Artistic Director Jillian Keiley, having previously worked as dramaturg with Keiley on Oil and Water and the Governor General's Literary Award–winning Afterimage, both by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland. At the NAC she led The Cycle, a seven-year initiative examining performing arts practice in relation to Indigenous, Deaf, disability, and Mad arts, and climate. She held the Associate Artistic Director role until 2021, and from 2022 served as Artistic Producer for the NAC's National Creation Fund, which supported works including a two-part stage adaptation of Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees, Mahabharata, and Kid Koala's The Storyville Mosquito.

Arts Commons and current work

In September 2023, Stanley was appointed Vice-President of Programming at Arts Commons in Calgary, Western Canada's largest arts centre, later renamed the Werklund Centre. She has since left that role and works as a freelance director, dramaturg, and public thinker. She serves on the board of Canada's Theatre Museum and Theatre Alberta, on the leadership advisory for Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, and on the National Advisory Committee for the National Creation Fund.

Selected directing credits

• Bunny, by Hannah Moscovitch — Stratford Festival (2016)
• Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, by Hannah Moscovitch — world premiere, Tarragon Theatre, Toronto (2020)
• Unsafe, Canadian Stage
• Out the Window, Luminato/Theatre Centre

Awards and recognition

Stanley has been a nominee for the Siminovitch Prize in directing. She is the recipient of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas' Elliott Hayes Award, a Manitoba Theatre Centre Award for Best Direction, and an Honorary Member Award from the Canadian Association for Theatre Research. Productions she has directed have been nominated for or won Dora Mavor Moore, Chalmers, Jessie Richardson, MECCA, Robert Merritt, and Betty Mitchell Awards. She was named an Arne Bengt Johansson Fellow at the Banff Forum in 2022, returning in 2023.

Personal life

In 2020, Stanley and Tracey Erin Smith purchased Birchdale, a historic property in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia, and have served as co-owners and stewards since.

External links

• Official website
• Manifesto for Now – essay series co-written with Owais Lightwala
• Create Canada – ideas project co-written with Owais Lightwala and David Maggs

Category:Living people Category:Canadian theatre directors Category:People from Montreal Category:Queen's University alumni