THE AENEID
Our Playwright

Olivier Kemeid completed studies in political science and philosophy. He worked as a copy editor for Confluences Magazine and is the author of various articles in this publication and in the newspaper Le Devoir. Immediately after graduation form the National Theatre School writing program in 2002, Marie-Therese Fortin offered him a one-year contract as her assistant at Theatre Trident in Quebec. He has written for television, including youth programs, and works in the preparation of three cabarets that will be produced by New Experimental Theatre this season. Olivier is was one of the founding members and is co-artistic director of the theatre company Trois Tristes Tigres. He has written, among other plays, Bacchanale (2008), created at the Theatre d'Aujourd'hui and The Aeneid (2007), his adaptation of Virgil"s epic poem, that he directed himself. The play is published in French by Lansman editor, and translated in English by Judith Miller, in German by Frank Heibert and in Hungarian. The Aeneid has been produced or read in France, Belgium, Germany, Hungary and United States. In July 2008, The Aeneid was read at the celebrated Avignon Festival. Olivier Kemeid was also the artistic director of Theatre Espace Libre in Montreal, from 2006 to 2010. He has written 7 plays.

"An Egyptian of Lebanese French Catholic ancestry, Kemeid's grandfather left Cairo in 1952, at a time when there were nationalist problems and non-Muslim institutions, signs of British rule--cinemas, restaurants, clubs and houses--were ransacked and burned. When the situation became untenable, they became boat-people, sailing Alexandria-Marseille, Marseille-Le Havre, Le Havre-Quebec. My father was six years old. Then he discovered snow."