Michaela Washburn (Métis)
Resident Community Engagement Liaison
Hailing from the prairies, Michaela Washburn is a proud Métis artist of Cree, French, English and Irish ancestry. Michaela has performed internationally at festivals and theatres in Wales, Aruba and across Canada, and the United States. With a background in Human Relations Counselling, her practice now lives primarily in performance; spanning theatre, film, television, writing, spoken word, improvisation, clown, audiobook narration, hosting, workshop facilitation and stand-up.
An award winning actor and author, Michaela also has multiple nominations; most notably for the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, the Ontario Arts Council’s Indigenous Arts Award, and the K. M. Hunter Artist Award for Theatre.
Washburn’s first play, Water Under the Bridge, which she co-wrote with Carrie Costello, toured with Carousel Players. Frozen River (nîkwatin sîpiy), a play she co-wrote with Carrie Costello and Joelle Peters, toured nationally, won the 2021 Sharon Enkin Plays for Young People Award, and is now available through Playwrights Canada Press. Currently, this collective is working on their next collaboration, Going Under; a play about teen suicide.
Michaela has been honoured to serve as a mentor for numerous emerging story creators with such organisations as the National Arts Centre, the Stratford Festival, Native Earth Performing Arts, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Industry Theatre, Soulpepper, Paprika Festival and Children’s Peace Theatre.
With a few audiobook narrations under her belt, she also made her directing debut with Lee Maracle’s Celia’s Song narrated by Columpa Bobb for ECW Press.
Selected theatre credits include: Strife (Punctuate! Theatre/Tarragon), Kohkom’s Babushka (Punctuate! Theatre/Pyretic Theatre/Banff Center for the Arts), Romeo and Juliet (Canadian Stage), Takwahiminana (Punctuate! Theatre/Soulpepper), Honour Beat (New West Theatre), This Is How We Got Here (Native Earth), Guarded Girls (Tarragon/Green Light Arts), Grace (Nightwood), Confederation and Riel (VideoCabaret/Soulpepper; *Dora Award), Animal Farm (Soulpepper), Fortune of Wolves (Theatre New Brunswick), In Care (Gordon Tootoosis Nikaniwin Theatre), The Hours That Remain (Magnus Theatre), The Speedy (UnSpun Theatre), Where the Blood Mixes (Western Canada Theatre/Theatre Aquarius/Theatre Network), The Rez Sisters (Factory Theatre), Such Creatures (Theatre Passé Muraille), Salt Baby (Native Earth), Spirit Horse (Roseneath Theatre), Three Little Birds (Workshop West Theatre), Death Of A Chief (Native Earth/National Arts Center), Dreary and Izzy (Native Earth)
Film/TV: Bloodlines (Devonshire Productions/Assini Productions), Skymed (Paramount/CBC/CBS), Pretty Hard Cases (CBC), Burden of Truth (CBC), Baroness Von Sketch (CBC/IFC), The River You Step In (Marjory Avenue Productions and Film Coop), Just One Word (Paper Canoe Projects), Guilt Free Zone (APTN), Remedy (Global TV), Breakout Kings (A&E), By The Rapids (APTN)
Presently, Michaela is honoured to be the Resident Community Engagement Liaison with Punctuate! Theatre and a member of the 2026 Pemmican Collective writing cohort.