maxim mazumdar new play award

ABOUT MAXIM

THE RECANTATION OF GALILEO GALILEI

Maxim Mazumdar was an actor, writer, teacher and director. He was born in India in 1954, and died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on April 28, 1988 of AIDS.

He studied at Loyola (now Concordia University) in Montreal and graduated in Communications Studies in 1972, before co-founding the Phoenix Theatre, a tiny space in a suburb of Montreal, in 1972. While with Phoenix he directed and acted, notably in works by Noel Coward and in his own one-man works. He is best known for Oscar Remembered, in which the infamous Wilde is viewed from the perspective of his disloyal lover Lord Alfred Douglas. He toured this monologue to the United States and across Canada, including the Stratford Festival.

After leaving Phoenix, he continued to write and perform in monologues based on gay history including Rimbaud and Dance for Gods.

He spent some time in New York City in the late 1970s, becoming a friend and business associate of gay activist Quenten Crisp. He also worked extensively with the Alleyway Theatre company in Buffalo, NY. He performed his last play, Lupercal, a musical, at the Alleyway in 1988. The annual playwriting competition there is named in his honor.

In 1979 he returned to Canada and founded the Stephenville Theatre Festival where he continued to direct until his death.

Oscar was revived at the Stratford Festival in 2000.

From the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia.

gilgamesh
othello