Miriam Fernandes is a Toronto-based artist who has worked as an actor, director and theatre-maker across Canada, USA, Norway, France, and Australia. As the Co-Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre, an international company whose work challenges the status quo of what stories are being told and who gets to tell them, Miriam is both a lead creator of much of the company’s work, as well as a member of the tri-leadership that guides the company’s vision and activities.

Miriam is the co-creator and associate director for Mahabharata (Why Not Theatre/Shaw Festival, touring to the Barbican Centre), the co-creator of What You Won’t Do for Love with Drs. David Suzuki and Tara Cullis, and is in development for a new adaptation of Enemy of the People. Directing credits include The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs (Stratford Festival Meighan Forum), Metamorphoses (CDTPS), Hayavadana (Soulpepper Theatre Audio Drama), Nesen, (MiniMidiMaxi Festival, Norway) The First Time I Saw the Sea (YVA Company, Norway).

Miriam also has a passion for theatre training. She has studied with with Anne Bogart’s SITI Company and is a graduate of Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. At Why Not she co-created the ThisGen Fellowship Program that connects BIPOC women and non-binary artists with world-class international mentors and teachers in order to expand their practice and support their leadership across the country. Miriam has also worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, and as an artist educator with Soulpepper Theatre, George Brown Theatre School, and Suitcase in Point Theatre. She is the recipient of the JBC Watkins Award and is a Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominee.