Person

Deverell, Rex, 1941-

Rex Deverell was born in Toronto on July 17, 1941, and was raised in Orillia, Ontario. In 1960 he moved to Hamilton to attend McMaster University and McMaster Divinity College, gaining his Bachelor of Arts in 1963 and a Bachelor of Divinity in 1966. He attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City during 1966-67 and was granted a Master of Sacred Theology degree before serving as pastor at the Edward St. Baptist Church in St. Thomas, Ontario from 1967-1970. He married Rita Shelton on May 24, 1967. They have one son, Shelton Ramsay Deverell, born in 1974. Since 1970, Rex Deverell has worked as a playwright in Toronto and Regina, serving as resident playwright at the Globe Theatre in Regina, 1975-1989. He is the author of fifty stage plays and collective creations as well as numerous radio plays, and television and film scripts. His plays have premiered in Banff, Regina, Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, Hamilton, and Chester, New Jersey, and many toured Saskatchewan with the Globe Theatre School Tour. Several of his plays have been published including two anthologies: 'Deverell at the Globe' (NeWest Press, 1989), and 'Plays of Belonging' (Playwrights Canada Press, 1997). Among several awards he has won, he received the 1978 Canadian Authors Award for the play 'Boiler Room Suite' and the 1986 Major Armstrong Award for 'The Riel Commission'. His radio plays, dramatizations, and commentaries have appeared locally and nationally on CBC Radio, and he has recently begun to write opera libretti. He was a founding member and president of the Playwrights Union of Canada, and has been associated with various provincial and national organizations including the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, the Guild of Canadian Playwrights, ACTRA, and the Saskatchewan Playwrights' Centre. Rex Deverell has lived in Toronto since 1989.