Professor Tara Goldstein
I am a professor, ethnographer and playwright in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, University of Toronto. I am also the Founding and Artistic Director of Gailey Road Productions, a theatre company that produces research-informed theatre on social and political issues that affect us all (www.gaileyroad.com). I graduated from the MFA Playwriting Program at Spalding University, Louisville, Kentucky, in November 2006. My historical drama Lost Daughter won the 2005 Canadian Jewish Playwriting Contest and was produced by Gailey Road at the 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival. Harriet's House, a contemporary drama about international adoption in an LGBTQ family, was produced at Hart House Theatre in July 2010, and has been published as part of my book Staging Harriet's House: Writing and Producing Research-Informed Theatre (Peter Lang 2012). Ana's Shadow, the sequel to Harriet's House, was recently published as one of the three plays in an anthology called Zero Tolerance and Other Plays (Sense Publishers 2013).
My most recent play Castor and Sylvie about French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and her companion Sylvie Le Bon was performed at the Toronto SummerWorks Festival in 2015 and the L Fest in Llandudno, Wales in 2018. Castor and Sylvie is part of my ongoing project of putting queer families on stage.
In addition to my work for the stage, I have written seven research-based plays on the schooling of minority high school students, which have been performed at conferences and in university and high school classrooms across Canada, the United States, Australia and in Bogotá, Colombia. My current verbatim play, Out at School, is based on video interviews with LGBTQ families about their experiences in Ontario schools: www.lgbtqfamiliesspeakout.ca Out at School has just been published in Teaching Gender and Sexuality at School by Taylor and Francis.
I am a proud member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada (PCG), was the Chair of PCG's Women Caucus from 2010-2012, and participated in the 2012 Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. I am also the curator of Women Writing Letters, a literary performance event produced by Gailey Road which completed its fourth season in April 2015. Letters from all four seasons have been published by Gailey Road Productions and are available at Amazon.
My most recent play Castor and Sylvie about French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and her companion Sylvie Le Bon was performed at the Toronto SummerWorks Festival in 2015 and the L Fest in Llandudno, Wales in 2018. Castor and Sylvie is part of my ongoing project of putting queer families on stage.
In addition to my work for the stage, I have written seven research-based plays on the schooling of minority high school students, which have been performed at conferences and in university and high school classrooms across Canada, the United States, Australia and in Bogotá, Colombia. My current verbatim play, Out at School, is based on video interviews with LGBTQ families about their experiences in Ontario schools: www.lgbtqfamiliesspeakout.ca Out at School has just been published in Teaching Gender and Sexuality at School by Taylor and Francis.
I am a proud member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada (PCG), was the Chair of PCG's Women Caucus from 2010-2012, and participated in the 2012 Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. I am also the curator of Women Writing Letters, a literary performance event produced by Gailey Road which completed its fourth season in April 2015. Letters from all four seasons have been published by Gailey Road Productions and are available at Amazon.