Ian C. Nelson
Bilingual director, dramaturge and actor Ian C. Nelson
has written, translated and adapted a number of play
scripts. Five, Sex, Pick Up Styx, his English adaptation
of David Baudemont’s Le Six, was performed in
alternating productions by La Troupe du Jour and
Dancing Sky Theatre in their millennium seasons. In
1994 he devised a bilingual playing script of Scapin!
combining the original text of Moliére with a new
English translation by David Edney (available through
Playwrights Guild of Canada). He also work shopped
The Dreaming Beauty by Daniel David Moses at a
national festival and subsequently oversaw its French
translation and production entitled Belle Fille de
l’Aurore (also available through PGC) which
represented Canada and North America at the 1991
I.A.T.A. World Festival in Halden, Norway.
For several years Ian has been a director/dramaturge in the work shopping of new
French scripts for the Festival de la Dramaturgie des Prairies in Edmonton and
Saskatoon. In 2001 his own play Le Sablier (under his nom de plume Christian de
Nesle) was work shopped at this festival, and subsequently broadcast twice by
Radio Canada. Ian’s English script Double Blind (written with Kevin Power) was
featured in the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre Spring Festival of New Plays in
2003.
Ian is author of The Scarlet Coat Serial, a play about the early days of the North
West Mounted Police, based on the poetry of David Day and a contributor in Write
On! Theatre Saskatchewan Anthology showcased in the 2007 University Authors
Exhibition.
As a performer, Ian has trained with Catherine Dasté in Paris and Wesley Balk in
Minneapolis.
He was recipient of the 1996 Janet Laine-Green Lifetime
Achievement Award for contributions to the development of theatre in
Saskatchewan.
Ian’s work as a director of some 100 productions has been seen literally from
coast to coast in Canada, in France and Norway. An actor in more than 100 roles
over the years, in 2001 he created the role of Paul Hiebert in the world premiere of
the musical Sarah Binks: Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan by Ken Mitchell
and Doug Hicton and in 2002 that of Jérôme in the French version of Connie
Kaldor’s musical Dust & Dreams. In 2004 he appeared as La Stasi in the world
premiere production of David Baudemont’s Cinq ans in Saskatoon and in
Edmonton.
Ian is an Librarian emeritus of the University of Saskatchewan.