Jacques Languirand

Jacques Languirand was an accomplished broadcaster, actor and writer and an internationally renowned playwright. In the 1950s and 1960s he was Canada’s most important exponent of the theatre of the absurd, having been influenced by playwrights in vogue while he was living in Paris between 1949 and 1953. Several of his dramatic efforts began as radio plays in Montréal before his first stage play, Les Insolites, was performed in 1956. It was awarded the prize for best Canadian play at the Dominion Drama Festival. Les Insolites along with Les Violons de l’Automne had a considerable impact on the evolution of French-Canadian drama. His theatrical creation Faust et les radicaux libres was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the International Theatre Competition of the Onassis Foundation in Greece, marking the first time the prize has been awarded to a French-language play. A long time career as a radio announcer Languirand has also spent time as a professor at the National School of Theatre and McGill University. He occasionally appears on stage and has a small number of credits for his work in film and on television. Jacques Languirand was appointed member of the Order of Canada in 1987 and elevated to an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2003. He was 86 when he died in 2018 due to Alzheimer’s disease.