The crowd rose to its feet as Tara Beagan made her way to the stage at Rideau Hall last Tuesday. The Ntlaka’pamux and Irish “Canadian” playwright’s hands trembled slightly as she accepted the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama—recognition that’s been decades in the making.
“My knees nearly gave out,” Beagan told me when we spoke by phone from her Calgary home. “I kept thinking of my grandmother, how she would have loved to see this moment, how she would have told everyone in the checkout line at Safeway.”
Beagan’s winning play, “Honour Beat,” weaves together the story of two sisters who return home to say goodbye to their dying mother. The work pulses with intergenerational tensions, unexpected humor, and spiritual connections that transcend conventional understanding of time and space.
I first encountered Beagan’s work in 2015 at a small theatre in East Vancouver. The raw emotional honesty of her characters stayed with me for weeks afterward—the way they moved through trauma while still finding moments of genuine joy. This duality has become something of a signature in her writing.
“I’m not interested in creating trauma porn,” Beagan says firmly. “Our communities have endured enough spectacles of our suffering. What matters to me is showing how we survive, how we laugh, how we maintain our humanity against impossible odds.”
The Governor General’s Award comes with a $25,000 prize and places Beagan among Canadian literary luminaries. Yet the recognition feels particularly significant given theatre’s historical underrepresentation of Indigenous voices.
Dr. Michelle LaFlamme, associate professor of Indigenous literature at the University of Fraser Valley, explains that this recognition represents more than just an individual achievement. “When Indigenous playwrights like Beagan receive this level of recognition, it creates pathways for younger Indigenous writers to see themselves in spaces where they’ve been historically excluded.”
Statistics from the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres show that less than 4% of professionally produced plays in Canada are written by Indigenous playwrights, despite Indigenous peoples making up nearly 5% of the Canadian population.
Beagan’s journey to this recognition began in community theatre and found momentum when she co-founded Article 11, a performance company dedicated to creating work that responds to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. Working alongside her creative and life partner Andy Moro, Beagan has created pieces that challenge audiences to confront colonial histories while celebrating Indigenous resilience.
The morning after our conversation, I visited Calgary’s Native Centre where rehearsals were underway for a community production of one of Beagan’s earlier works. A teenage actress named Kirsten fumbled momentarily with her lines before finding her stride again. When I mentioned that I was writing about Beagan’s recent award, Kirsten’s eyes widened.
“We studied her work in my drama class last semester,” she said. “It’s the first time I’ve read a play where the Indigenous characters felt like real people and not just symbols or victims. That’s what I want to write someday.”
This impact on younger generations doesn’t surprise Yvette Nolan, former artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts. “Tara’s writing creates space for complex Indigenous characters to exist fully on stage—with flaws, desires, contradictions—all the messy humanity that makes great theatre.”
Beagan’s win comes at a pivotal moment for Indigenous arts in Canada. The Canada Council for the Arts recently announced a $25 million initiative to support Indigenous-led arts organizations over the next five years. Meanwhile, major institutions like the National Arts Centre have created dedicated Indigenous theatre departments with their own artistic directors and programming streams.
Yet challenges remain. When I asked Beagan about the future of Indigenous theatre in Canada, she paused thoughtfully before answering.
“Recognition is nice—don’t get me wrong. But what we really need is sustained support for Indigenous-led companies and training programs. One award doesn’t fix the systemic inequities in arts funding or the fact that many of our stories still get filtered through non-Indigenous directors and producers.”
She added, “That said, I hope some young Indigenous storytellers are encouraged by this. I hope they see that our stories matter, that they deserve to be told on the biggest stages, with all the resources that other stories receive.”
The Canada Council for the Arts reports that while Indigenous arts funding has increased by 35% since 2016, it still represents just 6.8% of overall arts funding nationwide.
When Beagan returns to her home community in British Columbia’s Fraser Canyon next month, she’ll bring her award with her. There will be a community feast, stories shared around fires, and perhaps most importantly, younger writers seeking advice.
“The award belongs to more than just me,” Beagan insists. “It belongs to my ancestors who kept our stories alive when it was dangerous to do so. It belongs to the elders who trusted me with their memories. And it belongs to the next generation who will take our stories even further.”
As our conversation winds down, Beagan mentions she’s already deep into her next project—a historical piece centered on Indigenous women’s resistance movements of the early 1900s. The research has taken her through archives, oral histories, and community knowledge keepers across three provinces.
“The stories have always been there,” she says. “We just need to listen differently.”
