Andrew Kushnir (born 1980) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

playwright and actor."Kushnir, Andrew"
''Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia'', March 5, 2019. He is most noted as co-creator with

Damien Atkins Damien Atkins is a Canadian actor and playwright."Damien Atkins stands out"
''< ...

and Paul Dunn of ''The Gay Heritage Project'', a theatrical show dramatizing aspects of

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term i ...

history which was shortlisted for the

Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in Toronto theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to prese ...

in 2014, The artistic director of Project Humanity, a theatrical organization which uses the arts to raise social awareness, Kushnir specializes in

verbatim theatre Documentary theatre is theatre that uses pre-existing documentary material (such as newspapers, government reports, interviews, journals, and correspondences) as source material for stories about real events and people, frequently without altering ...

which addresses social issues by making theatrical presentations out of the real testimonies of people impacted by social issues. His plays have included ''Captain Princess'', ''foto'', ''The Middle Place'', ''Small Axe'', ''Wormwood'' and ''Towards Youth: A Play on Radical Hope''. ''Towards Youth'' was published in 2022 by

University of Toronto Press The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911. The press originally printed only examination books and the university cale ...

. He is currently playwright in residence at

Tarragon Theatre The Tarragon Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the main centers for contemporary playwriting in the country.

. In 2023 he directed a production of Nick Green's ''Casey and Diana'', a dramatization of the 1991 visit of Diana, Princess of Wales to Casey House, Toronto's

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

hospice, for the

Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival is a theatre festival which runs from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Founded by local journalist Tom Patterson in 1952, the festival was formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival ...

.Karen Fricker
"‘My mother burst into tears’: Inside ‘Casey and Diana,’ the most moving Canadian play of the year"
''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

'', June 10, 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kushnir, Andrew 1980 births 21st-century Canadian male actors 21st-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights Canadian male stage actors Canadian male dramatists and playwrights Canadian LGBT dramatists and playwrights Canadian gay actors Canadian gay writers Canadian theatre directors Male actors from Montreal Writers from Montreal Living people 21st-century Canadian LGBT people Gay dramatists and playwrights