This article is about the theater director. For the politician from Massachusetts, see John A. Hirsch. For the South African sportsman, see John Hirsch (sportsman).
John Hirsch
Bronze statue of John Hirsch (standing) and Tom Hendry (seated) at the Royal MTC.
Theater directing, artistic direction, co-founding Theatre 77, musicals, and plays
Parent(s)
József and Ilona Hirsch
John Stephen Hirsch, OC (/hɜːrʃ/; May 1, 1930 – August 1, 1989) was a Hungarian-Canadian theatre director. He was born in Siófok, Hungary to József and Ilona Hirsch, both of whom were murdered in the Holocaust along with his younger brother István.[1] Hirsch survived after spending most of the Second World War years in Budapest, and came to Canada in 1947 through the War Orphans Project of the Canadian Jewish Congress.[2] Arriving in Winnipeg, Hirsch was taken into the home of Alex (Sasha) and Pauline Shack.[3] He remained close to the Shacks for the rest of his life, and although he lived in New York City and Toronto, maintained strong ties with the city of Winnipeg.
In 1957, Hirsch and Tom Hendry co-founded Theatre 77, which they combined with the Winnipeg Little Theatre in 1958 to form the Manitoba Theatre Centre (MTC) with Hirsch as artistic director and Hendry as manager. MTC became an influential model for regional theatres across Canada and the United States, and is one of Hirsch's most important contributions to Canadian theatre.[4] He directed many plays and musicals at MTC, which he left in 1965.
He was co-artistic director at the Stratford Festival (1967–1969), head of television drama for the CBC (1974–1978), and artistic director at the Stratford Festival (1981–1985). He was also consulting artistic director at the Seattle Repertory Theater (1979–81).
In 1989, the Manitoba Foundation for the Arts established the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. An endowment from the Hirsch estate provides a cash prize to the most promising Manitoba writer selected by a jury of senior members of the Manitoba writing and publishing community. Some of the past recipients include: David Bergen, Miriam Toews, and Chandra Mayor.
