Ross Manson

Director

Ross Manson is an award-winning director, and the founding artistic director of Volcano, an internationally acclaimed theatre company based in Toronto. Over the past 20 years, Ross has directed and or co-created many shows for Volcano, which have toured around the world, and won or been nominated for over seventy local, national and international awards (including Dora awards for Ross as a director, a play-maker and a co-producer), a KM Hunter Award for his body of work as a theatre artist, a Harold award for arts community service, and the Best of Edinburgh award for his production of Goodness, by Michael Redhill). He has also directed for various companies across Canada, as well as in Helsinki (Svenska Theatre) and in Munich (BeMe). Ross trained in England at the University of London (MA in Theatre, specialty in Directing), in Germany (Directing apprenticeship, Stadttheater Freiburg), and in Canada (Banff School of Fine Arts and Mount Allison University). 

NOW Magazine cover story 2003
“We’ve inherited a method of work here that’s part history, part England, part budget. It’s very efficient — but it can hem you in artistically.”

The Scientific Director 2005
Manson's approach strives to create what he calls "cognitive dissonance" …  "It's a way of getting around forgetfulness." Thematically, he is fascinated with the notion of prophecy and legacy -- "how actions in the present moment will affect the future and whether we think about that."

Preparing a Century of Song 2016
“The trust that evolves in collaborating with a team over many years is enormous. And because so much of what we do is experimental, and often quite fragile, trust helps us make the right decisions.”

In Conversation: Odile Gakire Katese and Ross Manson 2019
“I believe that everything is story. We are made up of stories, the stories that we carry around in our heads invent us and put the world around us into reality.”