DANIEL MacIVOR, born on this date, is a Canadian actor, playwright, theatre director, and film director. He is probably best known for his acting roles in independent films and the sitcom Twitch City.

In addition to his film and theatrical credits, MacIvor wrote the libretto to the opera “Hadrian,” for which Rufus Wainwright wrote the music. He founded the theatre company da da kamera with Michele Jelley in 1986 to independently produce his own work.

He was in residence at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre – for whom he has written, directed, and acted. His plays include Never Swim Alone, This is a Play, Monster, Marion Bridge, You are Here, Cul-de-sac, and A Beautiful View. Five of MacIvor’s plays were published as I Still Love You in 2006, in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of da da kamera, (Never Swim Alone, The Soldier Dreams, You are Here, In on It, and A Beautiful View), and won MacIvor a coveted Governor General’s Award for Drama.

MacIvor is particularly well known for a series of solo shows created in collaboration with director Daniel Brooks. These include House, Here Lies Henry, Monster and Cul-de-sac. These incorporate a minimalist and meta-theatrical style. In House and Here Lies Henry, MacIvor portrays one character who speaks directly to the audience, acknowledging their presence. While the direct address of the audience continues in Monster and Cul-de-sac, MacIvor portrays several characters throughout the course of the piece and this direct address is occasionally broken up by dialogue between these characters.

In 1992, 2-2 Tango was included in Making Out, the first anthology of Canadian plays by gay writers, alongside works by Ken Garnhum, Sky Gilbert, David Demchuk, Harry Rintoul and Colin Thomas.

The first three of these pieces were staged at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in the 2006/2007 season as part of a tribute and retrospective of da da kamera’s work.

In the early 2000s MacIvor wrote, co-wrote and directed several independent films, which were usually made in his home province of Nova Scotia. They include Past Perfect, Marion Bridge, Whole New Thing and Wilby Wonderful.

As an actor he appeared in Cynthia Roberts’s Bubbles Galore and Jeremy Podeswa’s The Five Senses, had a recurring role in the television series Republic of Doyle and played Nathan in the iconic Canadian television series Twitch City. In recent years MacIvor has been working with director Bruce McDonald as screenwriter of the films Trigger and Weirdos (for which MacIvor won a Canadian Screen Award in 2017 for best original screenplay).

MacIvor is out gay. He married Paul Goulet in 2006; they have since divorced.