Evalyn Parry is an award- winning Canadian performance-maker and theatrical innovator whose unique work as a director, writer/performer and musician is inspired by intersections of history, social justice and auto/biography. Through her deeply collaborative practice, Parry has built a singular body of work across disciplines of theatre, music and literary performance.

From 2015 to 2020, Evalyn served as the artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the world’s largest and longest running queer theatre company and a leader in Canadian contemporary performance creation.  Her tenure at Buddies was defined by her socially relevant, inclusive and boundary-pushing mainstage programming and curation; an industry-leading, inter-generational queer community project, and bringing Buddies productions to the international stage.  Significant projects led by Parry during her time at Buddies included Kiinalik:These Sharp Tools,  Gertrude and Alice and The Youth/Elders Project.

Parry is the recipient of numerous awards, including the several Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the KM Hunter Award for Theatre, the Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award, and the Ken McDougall Award for Upcoming Director.  in addition, she has been acknowledged with multiple Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for her work as director, writer, performer and composer, and most recently, a nomination for the 2018 Governor General’s Literary Awards for her play Gertrude and Alice (with Anna Chatterton and Karin Randoja).  In 2018 her show Kiinalik:These Sharp Tools (co-created with Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Erin Brubacher, Elysha Poirier and Cris Derksen) took home the Dora Award for Outstanding New Play, as well as Sound Design/Composition; the first play she directed for Buddies mainstage in 2012, Obaaberima by Tawiah M’Carthy, took the Dora for Outstanding Production and went on to tour nationally.

Parry’s critically acclaimed show SPIN (about the feminist history of the bicycle) was developed and first produced at Buddies in 2011; it went on to tour extensively around Canada and the USA, logging more than 300 performances around North America, from the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse to the Lincoln Center in New York City and many places in between 2011 and 2019.  She is a founding member of the acclaimed feminist collective Independent Aunties, with whom she has co-authored and performed six plays, including the recent Gertrude and Alice, Breakfast, and their award-winning festival favourite Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine).

In addition to her theatrical productions, Parry has produced five albums of music and poetry; her work has been included in numerous anthologies and made into short films.  She lives in Toronto with her wife and her dog.