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Tomson Highway
Tomson is the eleventh of twelve children, five boys and seven girls. Only six of the eleven are alive today. For the first six years of his life he lived a traditional nomadic lifestyle in the remote forests and lakes of northwestern Manitoba. Cree was the only language spoken among his family, and he only became fluent in English in his late teens. He was sent to a Roman Catholic boarding school at the age of six. He stayed there until age fifteen, and was then sent to Churchill Highschool in Winnipeg, where he stayed with a number of white foster families. He graduated in 1970. After high school, Tomson spent two years at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Music studying piano, which he had picked up at the age of thirteen. He then went to London, England where he studied to be a concert pianist under William Aide. After a year he returned to the University of Manitoba for a year and then went on to the University of Western Ontario where he graduated with a Bachelor of Music in May 1975. He stayed another year to complete English courses required for a Bachelor of Arts degree. During this period in his life he met and worked with poet/playwright James Reaney and saw his first Michel Tremblay play. After university, he went to work with Native groups in Ontario and across Canada for seven years. When he turned thirty, he brought these experiences together and began to write plays. His plays were performed mostly on reserves and at urban Native community centres. He also worked with various Native theatre companies as an actor, director and muscial director. In December 1986 his play, The Rez Sisters, became a hit, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play in Toronto's 1986-87 season. It was performed to sold-out audiences across the country. His next play was Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, which was workshopped at Playwrights' Montréal, and then produced in Toronto first at Theatre Passe-Muraille, then at the Royal Alexandre. He has been the Artistic Director at Native Earth Performing Arts for the last 5 years. Plays Dry Lips Oughta Move To Kapuskasing, Native Earth Performing
Arts, Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, 1989; Dir: Larry Lewis. Published Work Dry Lips Oughta Move To Kapuskasing, Fifth House Publishers,
1989. Awards Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, Outstanding New Play, 1989
(Dry Lips Oughta Move To Kapuskasing); Finalist, 1988 (The Rez Sisters).
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