Deborah Cottreau has an academic and performance background, having obtained a BFA in Acting from the University of Windsor, a certificate from the renowned Lecoq school in Paris, and an MA and PhD in theatre studies from the Drama Centre, University of Toronto.
Academically, the plays of Samuel Beckett (and the Beckett manuscripts at the University of Reading) and new play development (in Ireland and Canada) have been the focus of much of her research and writing. She served as Book Review Editor for the Journal of Irish Studies, as well as editor for Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada for a number of years. In 1996, she assembled and edited essays from important dramaturgs across Canada and produced a ground-breaking issue for Canadian Theatre Review on Canadian dramaturgical practices which was later reprinted almost in its entirety in Developing Nation: New Play Creation in English-Speaking Canada (2009).
Artistically, Dr. Cottreau specializes in physical theatre, mask, clown, the commedia dell’arte and devised work. She pioneered the curriculum on commedia for the School of Dramatic Art (1989). Since 2001, much of her time has been spent working as a dramaturg for La Troupe du Jour, Saskatchewan’s only professional French theatre company. She has had the honour of working on La Maculée/S†ain, by Madeleine Blais-Dahlem, and La Chambre blanche, by Ian C. Nelson, both of which won SATAs (Saskatoon and Area Theatre Award) for Outstanding Playwriting from the region’s professional (and almost unilaterally English-speaking) theatre artists. In the spring of 2016, Dr. Cottreau completed an intensive dramaturgical workshop on Cantate pour légumes by Madeleine-Blais Dahlem, which she then directed for Saskatchewan Playwright’s Centre Spring Festival of New Plays in Regina. In her spare time, she directs.