Biography of Bill Ballantyne

Bill Ballantyne was born in Montreal in 1945. After graduating from the Yale Drama School in 1970, he moved to Toronto and became an actor. He worked most of the local theatres and did his mandatory stint at Stratford - filling the gaps with the odd commercial and bits of television work. In 1982 he wrote a play, The Al Cornell Story, which was produced twice by Theatre Passe Muraille. another play, Bat Masterson's Last Regular Job, was presented simultaneously both in Toronto and New York. The addiction set in and he has been writing plays ever since. Ironically, most of them have been done in America, principally by The Writers Theatre in New York and the El Portal Theatre in Los Angeles. They include Bix, Spit In the Ocean, Birdwatching, Chechnya, Turtles, Far Away and Buster and Sam. His latest piece, Goodbye Tim Hardin, will open this October, in Toronto, under the auspices of Hrant Alianak Theatre Productions. He off-sets his time by playing jazz piano and battling his ever-present fear of the nine-to-five job.