AnnickPress

Allan Stratton was born in Stratford, Ontario. Before he was two, he and his mother went to live with his grandparents, first on a farm, and later in the town of Kincardine. While his mother taught history, Allan listened to fairy tales and classical music on a child’s seventy-eight record player. These records sparked his imagination, and a lifelong passion for reading and writing. At the age of five, he was organizing his friends in plays, performed for their parents in the backyard. In grade six, his class produced a fifteen-minute play he’d written about Henry Hudson. By grade eight, he was reading a book every couple of days, with a taste that ranged from comics to Shakespeare.

Allan began his career acting at the Stratford Festival and at regional theaters across Canada. He spent two years at the Vancouver Playhouse, from 1975 to 1977 as both actor and playwright. Allan has also lived and worked in the theater in Winnipeg, Regina, Montreal, and New York. In 1980 he turned to playwriting full-time after the success of Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii, which has had over 300 productions throughout Canada and the U.S.A. Rexy! followed in 1981 and won him a Chalmers Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Canadian Authors’ Association Award, all for best play. Allan’s Friends of a Feather, adapted from Labiche’s Célimare, played at the Shaw Festival, toured to the National Arts Centre, and was the first Shaw production aired on the CBC.

Papers premiered at the Tarragon Theatre, winning a 1986 Chalmers Award, and a nomination for both the Governor General’s Award and the Dora Mavor Moore Award. His play Bag Babies was a finalist for the 1991 Toronto Book Award, and his 1995 adaptation of Dracula was a finalist for the Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Recently, Allan has turned his attention to fiction. His first novel, The Phoenix Lottery (Riverbank Press), won a Stephen Leacock Award of Merit and was nominated for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor, and the TORGI Award (C.N.I.B’s Talking Book Award). A play version of The Phoenix Lottery opened to acclaim at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, in 2001. Allan’s first work for teens is Leslie’s Journal, a powerful, suspenseful and fast-paced story of a girl finding inner strength and determination. Leslie’s Journal (Revised 2008) was named to the American Library Association’s “Best Books for Young Adults” booklist, Teacher Librarian Magazine,  placed it on their “The Best, Notable and Recommended List”, placed 2nd for the White Pine Award and was listed as a “Gems of 2000” by The Canadian Bookseller Magazine.

Chanda’s Secrets (2004) takes readers into the whirlwind of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. Stephen Lewis, UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa says of the book, “Chanda’s Secrets is a novel with the lilt of Africa in its language and the urgency of adolescent struggle in every paragraph.”  Chanda’s Secrets was recently made into a feature film, Love Above All, which won the prestigious François Chalais prize at the Cannes International Film Festival. It is being released in North America by Sony Classics.

One of the greatest inspirations in Allan's life is his mom, whom he describes as “amazing.” Despite being a single mom in the 1950s, she excelled at her career and encouraged her son to follow his dreams. Every year from age five she took him to see Shakespeare at the Stratford Festival. Allan was fortunate to see Twelfth Night in the original tent theater! Poet and playwright James Reaney is another inspiration. He cast Allan in the original production of his play Listen to the Wind when Allan was in grade nine and published Allan’s first play, The Rusting Heart, written in grade twelve, in his literary journal Alphabet.

Allan has a M.A. from the Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama, University of Toronto. He is the past Head of Drama at the Etobicoke School of the Arts and a former member of New York’s Actors’ Studio. Other life experiences include attending exorcisms in Botswana, undergoing Santerian purification rituals in Cuba, sleeping between box cars behind the former Iron Curtain, and working in soup kitchens in Manhattan. He lives in Toronto with his partner, two cats and any number of fish. He enjoys snorkeling, weight lifting, cross-training, and traveling.