Yolanda Bonnell facts for kids

Yolanda Bonnell is a talented actress and writer from Canada. She is famous for her play Bug. This play was even nominated for a big award called the Governor General's Award in 2020 for English-language drama.

Early Life and Learning

Yolanda Bonnell is a member of the Anishinaabe people from the Fort William First Nation. This community is located near Thunder Bay, Ontario. She studied theatre at Humber College. Her first important acting role was in 2016. She performed in a play called The Crackwalker by Judith Thompson.

Her Career in Theatre

Yolanda Bonnell has acted in many plays. In 2018, she was in Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story by Kim Senklip Harvey. The next year, in 2019, she performed in The Unnatural and Accidental Women by Marie Clements.

New Plays by Yolanda Bonnell

In 2022, Yolanda Bonnell showed two new plays. Her play White Girls in Moccasins premiered at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. She also premiered My Sister's Rage at Tarragon Theatre.

About Her Play Bug

Yolanda Bonnell's play Bug has been shown at many theatre events. It first appeared at the Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times in 2015. In 2019, Bug was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play.

The play gained a lot of attention in early 2020. This happened when Theatre Passe Muraille produced it. Yolanda Bonnell made a special request for this production. She asked that only theatre critics who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) review her play.

Bonnell explained her request. She said that her work had sometimes received unfair reviews before. She felt that some critics did not understand Indigenous art. She wanted reviews to come from people who had a deeper understanding of her culture and the themes in her work. She said, "I don't mind being critiqued. But at least let it come from a place of knowledge, of understanding what you're talking about."