Allan Stratton

Allan Stratton (born 1951) is a Canadian playwright and novelist.

Stratton was born in Stratford, Ontario, and began his professional arts career while he was still in high school when James Reaney published his play The Rusting Heart in the literary magazine Alphabet. It was broadcast on CBC Radio in 1970. The focus of his early work, however, was acting. While working on an Honours degree in English at Victoria University in the University of Toronto (1973), he performed with the Stratford Festival and the Huron Country Playhouse. After completing his M.A. at The Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama, University of Toronto (1974), he appeared with regional theatres across the country, originating a range of roles in new works by playwrights such as James Reaney, Rex Deverell and Sharon Pollock.

Throughout this period, Stratton continued to write, and in 1977 his first professional stage play, 72 Under the 0, was produced by Christopher Newton at the Vancouver Playhouse. A few years later, he turned to writing full-time, thanks to the success of Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii, a play that has had over three hundred productions internationally. Rexy!, a satire about Mackenzie King, was premiered in the winter of 1981. It was performed across Canada, and won the Chalmers Award, the Canadian Authors' Association Award, and the Dora Mavor Moore Award, all for Best New Play.

In 1982, he moved to New York City, where he was a member of the Playwright/Director Unit of Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio, chaired by Arthur Penn. While there, Christopher Newton commissioned Stratton to write an adaptation of the classic Labiche farce Célimare for the Shaw Festival Mainstage. The production went on to tour to the National Arts Centre, and was the first Shaw production aired on CBC television. Papers, another of his plays with an international publication and production record, followed soon after. It premiered at the Tarragon Theatre, and won a Chalmers Award for Outstanding New Play, as well as being nominated for the 1986 Governor General's Award for English language drama the Dora Mavor Moore Award.

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