Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Ian Ross, 57, ‘left a lot of love behind’: artistic director

The Manitoba theater community is mourning the sudden death of Ian Ross, renowned Out-Ojibway. playwright, storyteller and teacher who died Wednesday at age 57.

“This is a huge, huge loss for everyone who knew Ian, for the theater community and for society as a whole,” said Royal Manitoba Theater Center artistic director Kelly Thornton.

“He had a huge impact on so many people.”

Ross was born in McCreary, Man., in April 1968, later moving to Winnipeg and receiving a BA in Film and Theater from the University of Manitoba.

His game travel Well then – a dark comedy about life on a fictional First Nations reserve – premiered at Winnipeg's Prairie Theater Exchange in 1996 and went on to win the Governor General's Award for English Drama, earning Ross first Indigenous playwright ever to receive this honor.

The play was later invited to be staged at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2001.

Ross was the author of several other plays, including: The Rupture, The Heart of a Distant Tribe, An Illustrated History of the Anishinaabe And nonsensea play for young audiences dealing with themes of poverty.

Most recently his play Third color It premiered at Prairie Theater Exchange in 2019.

Ross was also well known for creating the character “Joe from Winnipeg”, who appeared in segments he wrote and appeared on CBC radio and television in the 1990s. Some of Joe's Winnipeg monologues were later published in two books: Book of Joe And Joe from Winnipeg.

Despite these accomplishments, Royal MTC's Thornton said Ross was most proud and passionate about his work training and supporting other Indigenous playwrights in Manitoba and helping them tell their stories.

In 2020, Ross began leading the RMTC Pimootayowin Creators Circle program, which supports the development of new plays by Indigenous artists in Manitoba and has helped several local Indigenous artists see their plays produced for the first time.

“He empowered people with the way he taught them and the way he helped them find their stories, so it's a terrible loss,” Thornton said.

“His work was by no means complete and that is the real tragedy of it all.”

Ross, who also taught theater at the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, was also known for his light-hearted teaching style, which often included humor and laughter, she said.

“He taught in our building on Monday nights, and the only laugh that comes out of that room when he teaches,” she said.

“He just left behind a lot of love and that love will continue to shine in his absence.”

When her own game The secret of good tea, premiering at RMTC in 2023 through Pimutayowina Circle of Artists, playwright Roseanne Deerchild, host Unconditional CBC Radio — said that she learned a lot from Ross.

“I call him Ojibway Van Kenobi because he is a Jedi Knight,” she said then, referring to the wise teacher from Star wars row.

“He told us to write the last scene first… because [then] you know the destination you’re trying to get to.”

Many remember Ross as a “consummate storyteller,” Thornton said.

“Any opportunity he was ever given to tell a story, he told a story,” she said.

“And some of them will be long and winding paths, and finally you will reach the source of knowledge and that little pearl that he wanted to share with you.”

The Pimootayowin Creators Circle program will continue in hopes of continuing Ross' vision, she said.

“Indigenous stories are very important,” she said.

“I appreciate what he did by coming here and founding Pimootayowin… That legacy needs to live on and these stories need to be told on stage and shared together.”