Marcus Youssef

Age: 51
Ethnicity: Mixed Egyptian/Arab & Anglo-Canadian
Occupation and/or Company: Playwright, Actor, Educator
Years of experience: 28

Personal & professional philosophy:
The ways we describe what we perceive to be others’ differences often reveal more about us than those we think we are describing. And (with thanks to Jordan Tannahill) a belief that, through small gestures of goodwill and compassion, we can better the world.

Upcoming performances/ project:
Boy in the Moon for Neworld Theatre/The Cultch, Do You Mind if I Sit Here? for Theatre Replacement, Jabber for theatres across North America and Europe, King Arthur’s Night for Theatre Calgary, Awkward Conversations for Neworld, Screenplay of Winners and Losers for Mina Shum

What is the highlight of your work?
Wow. I’ve been at this too long to define one highlight. Wallace Shawn sticking around my show Winners and Losers off-Broadway to tell us how much he liked it? Hiking fjords in Iceland while on tour there? Working with No One Is Illegal on how to make the art of protests better, more effective? Doing multiple shows in Berlin? Coming out of a play I wrote for teens and hearing one very loud 10th or 11th grader shout, “Woah — I thought that was going to be BORING!” Working with young people who worked in the sex trade, making short films with Access to Media Education Society?

Future goals:
Finish the commissions I’m writing. Continue to provoke and develop connections between artists and formal politics. Use the experience of Covid to focus more on the local, on my communities close to home, and to tour and travel less.