DIANE FLACKS

Diane Flacks is a writer/actor, dramaturge, story editor, and producer in theatre, TV, radio, and print media. For TV, Diane wrote on numerous series including Workin’ Moms, Baroness von Sketch Show, Young Drunk Punk, Working the Engels and Kids in the Hall - for which she was nominated for an Emmy, and co-created others, including PR and The Broad Side (CBC). She was the supervising producer for three seasons on the APTN series Qanurli? in Iqaluit. She also has a number of series currently in development, including The Rink, a new workplace comedy co-created with Tommie-Amber Pirie with Incendo Productions, and Bruce McCulloch’s Dog Park, with Lionsgate.

As a playwright, her fifth one-person play, Guilt (a love story) directed by Alisa Palmer, premiered at the Tarragon in spring 2024, and then toured to the Centaur and the RMTC to rave reviews, and is headed to Victoria. Her four other solo shows Myth Me, By A Thread, Random Acts and Bear With Me (adapted from her book of the same name), have been critically acclaimed and remounted nationally and internationally, including in New York at LaMama Theatre and in Los Angeles. Diane also recently co-wrote and acted in a new play, PALS, at the WJT, directed by Jillian Keiley, with her theatrical brother, Richard Greenblatt, with whom she also wrote SIBS and CARE, both for the Tarragon Theatre. Diane and Richard adapted SIBS into a film for CBC. Also written for the Tarragon, is her play about medical risk and compassion, Waiting Room. She wrote and starred in Unholy, her hit, critically acclaimed play about women and religion for Nightwood Theatre, directed by Kelly Thornton. Unholy was remounted twice in Toronto, published by Playwrights Canada Press, nominated for a Dora for outstanding new play, and was filmed live for TV.  Her solo play for Luba Goy, Luba, Simply, Luba won the prestigious Kobzar literary award.

Selected acting credits include Mayer Lehman in The Lehman Trilogy for Theatre Calgary, directed by Sarah Garton Stanley, and the long-anticipated adaptation of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees, directed by Alisa Palmer at CanStage, NAC, Neptune and the Grand theatres. FOYK was Dora nominated, and a recipient of a number of Robert Merritt awards in Halifax. Diane played the titular role of Nathan in Nathan the Wise in Stratford. Diane also received a Dora nomination for outstanding performance in Body Politic, by Nick Green at Buddies. Diane performed Judy Gold's solo show Twenty-Five Questions for a Jewish Mother at WJT in Winnipeg, directed by Krista Jackson, and in an all-female Midsummer Nights Dream at Theatre Passe Murraille, directed by Kate Lynch. Also at TPM was Yichud, written by Julie Tepperman, which then toured to the Magnetic North Festival. 

Diane was part of the Stratford playwright residency, and is working on a new play, which received the Elliot Hayes Playwright Award from the Stratford festival. She played the lead in the independent queer film Portrait of A Serial Monogamist. She was CBC radio’s national parenting columnist for 7 years, and a featured columnist at The Toronto Star, with her column "In the Thick of It", and was the Globe's parenting columnist. She has written the Dora Awards for the last 8 years. Diane is the proud mom of two astonishing sons.