Emil Sher

Emil Sher’s wide-ranging works for the stage, screen and print have been honoured at home and internationally and translated into French, Italian, Hebrew, Slovak, Russian, Japanese, Turkish, Danish and Indonesian.

Emil’s stage work for the young and the once-were-young include Mourning Dove, Bluenose, Derailed, The Book of Ashes, Beneath the Banyan Tree and an adaptation of Edward the ‘Crazy Man’ for Workman Arts.  “St. Louis was a better place simply because this play was happening here,” a critic wrote of the U.S. premiere of Hana’s Suitcase, a celebrated adaptation of the beloved Holocaust book by Karen Levine. In addition to two national tours, Hana’s Suitcase has been staged in St. Louis, Seattle, Chicago and Lexington.

His stage adaptation of The Boy in the Moon, Ian Brown’s memoir about raising his disabled son, was a Dora Mavor Moore Award finalist for Outstanding New Play.  The Toronto premiere at Crow’s Theatre was honoured as one of the Top Ten Productions of 2018 by The Globe and Mail, and selected by former critic Robert Cushman as one of his Personal Bests from a Decade Theatre (2010-2019).

Emil’s first crack at a musical was writing the libretto and co-writing the lyrics for The Hockey Sweater: A Musical, based on Roch Carrier’s beloved classic.  He worked with composer/lyricist Jonathan Monro and director Donna Feore on an acclaimed adaptation that premiered at the Segal Centre, followed by a run at the NAC in 2018 that was heralded as one of the best productions of the year by The Ottawa Citizen.

Meadowlarks, a feature film about the Sixties Scoop that Emil co-wrote with director Tasha Hubbard, premiered at TIFF 50 in September 2025. Currently, Emil is developing the stage adaptation of By Chance Alone, Max Eisen’s acclaimed memoir.