Person Biography:
Born in 1956 in Lethbridge, Alberta, the playwright grew up in Calgary, where her first play, Chatters, was produced in 1974 at Factory Theatre West. She graduated from York University in Film Studies in 1978 and returned to Alberta to write Checkin' Out, commissioned by Northern Light Theatre, which premiered in 1981 and subsequently played across Western Canada.
She is best known for Bordertown Café, commissioned by Blyth Festival and premiered in 1987. Set on the Canadian side of the Alberta/Montana border, the play features a hybrid American/Canadian family torn between their unrealized hopes and dreams and family loyalties. The teenage son ultimately decides to stay in Alberta with his struggling single mother and Canadian grandfather to help harvest wheat, instead of joining his truckdriving father in the US. The play won the 1990 CAA for Drama and was adapted into a feature film by Cinexus/Famous Players, directed by Norma Bailey and written by Rebar, who received a Genie Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Bordertown Café has been widely produced in its revised version in theatres across Canada, including Theatre New Brunswick, Centaur Theatre, Grand Theatre, London, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Globe Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Arts Club Theatre, Belfry Theatre (2009),and again at the Blyth Festival with a new cast in 2010. The play is published by Talonbooks.
Rebar's other notable plays include Cornflower Blue (Memories From A Prairie Childhood),commissioned by the Blyth Theatre Festival and toured throughout Ontario and Manitoba, and First Snowfall, written during her residency at Alberta Theatre Projects and produced by Theatre Network. Her plays are characterized by colloquial dialogue and voluble characters.
In addition to her work in theatre, Rebar writes for television and film, including the television series Wind at My Back and Jake and the Kid. She has also adapted several of Alice Munro's short stories, including the television feature based on Lives of Girls and Women (1994).
