Roland François Mahé

Mahé, Roland François

 Roland François Mahé, theatre director (b at St-Boniface, Manitoba 1 May 1940). Mahé graduated with a BA (Fine Arts) from the University of Manitoba in 1963. He has been an active member of the theatre company CERCLE MOLIÈRE since 1961, starting with an interest in the technical and visual aspects of theatre before becoming involved in all aspects of drama. He worked closely with the Cercle Molière's artistic director, Pauline Boutal, first in set design. Boutal encouraged him to discover other aspects of theatre, and he soon began directing workshops with younger actors. After designing his first set for the play La Savetière prodigieuse by Federico Garcia Lorca (1963), Mahé produced his first play, Albert Camus's Le Malentendu, for a workshop. Mahé continued his studies in Montréal at the École nationale de théâtre in 1965. Receiving a bursary offered by the French government the following year, he studied at the École supérieure d'art dramatique in Strasbourg, France, before returning to Winnipeg in 1967.

Since Boutal's retirement in 1968, Mahé has been the first full-time artistic director of the Cercle Molière. He continues to produce plays and, since the early 1970s, has expanded the company's mandate to include works written by western Canadian francophone artists. Since 1993 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the École nationale de théâtre du Canada in Ottawa. He is a founding member and vice-president of the Association des théâtres francophones du Canada, as well as a founding member of the Association des Compagnies de théâtre de l'Ouest (January, 1999).

Mahé has received many honours and awards for his work. He is the first artist to have received the Prix Manitoba Award (1995) for his career and for his contribution to the arts in Manitoba. In 1999 he was one of the first three inductees to the Manitoba Cultural Hall of Fame (le Temple de la renommée culturelle). In 2000 he received Great West Life's Prix de réussite artistique (Prize for artistic success). In 2001 the Association of the Francophone Theatres of Canada, awarded him the Prix Marcus, a distinction given to "a person who has made an exceptional contribution to theatre in Francophone Canada."