Darla CONTOIS

Darla Contois is a Cree-Saulteaux playwright from Winnipeg, Canada whose home community
is Grand Rapids Cree Nation in Manitoba. She studied theatre at Manitoba Theatre for Young
People and at the University of Manitoba and is a 2014 graduate of the three-year Professional
Training Program at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre.
Darla plays the lead character of Esther Rosenblum, a young woman who was taken from her
family as a young girl in the 60s Scoop, in the Crave Original drama series, Little Bird, marking
her breakout from theatre into television acting.
“When I first read the scripts for Little Bird I was completely blown away by the content, by the
heart of it, and by the writers’ ability to put together this story,” she said. “I just feel honoured
and unworthy at times because the story is so monumental in terms of Indigenous story-
telling.”
Darla Contois’ first major theatre production, The War of Being Waged, opened to great
acclaim in 2021 at the Prairie Theatre Centre, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She wrote and
directed the play that is deeply personal to her, drawing on her own life and family experiences.

The War Being Waged has been called ‘a stunning piece of theatre, in which Darla Contois has
created a story that is familiar, harrowing, compelling, nuanced, full of love, grace, and art.’
Darla has appeared most recently in Happy Place, directed by Thomas Morgan Jones at Prairie
Theatre Exchange Main Stage. Darla also self-produced her one-woman show entitled White
Man’s Indian which awarded her an emerging artist award presented by the Theatre Centre in
Toronto of 2017.
Darla lives in Winnipeg with her young daughter. She is represented by Tyman Stewart at The
Characters Talent Agency.