Billy Merasty

Billy Merasty
Born	1960 Brochet, Manitoba, Canada
Occupation	Actor, Writer

Billy Merasty (born 1960) is an Aboriginal Canadian actor and writer of Cree descent.

Merasty is the ninth child of fourteen children born to Viola Marie Merasty and Pierre Merasty; the grandson of Joe Highway, a famous caribou hunter and champion dogsled racer; and the nephew of playwright Tomson Highway and dancer/choreographer/actor/director René Highway.

He moved to Toronto at the age of 18 in search of his uncle René Highway, who was at the time working for the Toronto Dance Theatre. At the age of 23, he launched his acting career after graduating from the Native Theatre School for aspiring First Nations artists. He then worked for the Native Earth Performing Arts for a long period.

Merasty has worked extensively on the stage and films as an actor and has written one play, Fireweed, produced in 1992. His second play, Godly's Divinia, is in development.

In 2010 Merasty received the Order of Manitoba (Order of the Buffalo Hunt) in recognition for his many years as an Aboriginal role model from Manitoba.

His stage credits include appearances in Tomson Highway's The Sage, The Dancer and the Fool, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing and The Rez Sisters, Daniel David Moses' The Indian Medicine Show, Lanford Wilson's Rain Dance, Marie Clements' Copper Thunderbird, Kevin Loring's Where the Blood Mixes, Steven Cole Hughes' Ghost Dance and David S. Craig's The Neverending Story.

In 2012, he performed the role of Gloucester in an all-aboriginal production of William Shakespeare's King Lear at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, alongside a cast that also included August Schellenberg as Lear, Tantoo Cardinal as Regan, Jani Lauzon in a dual role as Cordelia and the Fool, and Craig Lauzon as Kent.

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