Debbie Patterson is a Winnipeg playwright, director and actor. Trained at the National Theatre School of Canada, she is a founding member of Shakespeare in the Ruins, and served as Artistic Director of the Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba. She was the Carol Shields Writer-in-Residence 2012 at the University of Winnipeg and Playwright-in-Residence at Theatre Projects Manitoba in 2013/14. She served as Artistic Associate at Prairie Theatre Exchange from 2012 to 2018 and is currently a member of the PTE Playwrights Unit. Debbie’s plays include How it Ends, Sargent & Victor & Me, the musicals Head, Molotov Circus, and numerous TYA shows for PTE. Patterson is in demand across the country as a consultant on crip aesthetics/accessibility and as a disability dramaturge. In 2016, Debbie became the first physically disabled actor to play the title role in Richard III in a professional Canadian production. She was honoured with the United Nations Platform for Action Committee’s 2014 Activist Award and the Winnipeg Arts Council Making a Mark Award in 2017. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the Gina Wilkinson Prize. She is a proud advocate for disability justice through her work as Founding Artistic Director of Sick + Twisted Theatre. She lives a wheelchair-enabled life in Winnipeg and in a cabin on the shore of Lake Winnipeg with her partner and collaborator, Arne MacPherson.