Playwright, educator.
Born at McCreary in April 1968 to a Saulteaux mother and Metis father, he was raised at Kinosota and later Winnipeg. In 1990, he received a BA degree in film and theatre from the University of Manitoba, having been a student in a class taught by novelist Carol Shields.
In 1996, his play fareWel premiered at the Prairie Theatre Exchange and, the following year, he received a Governor General’s Award for English Drama. He was the first Indigenous playwright to receive this honour. He wrote several other plays including Heart of a Distant Tribe (1996), Baloney (1998), The Gap (2001), An Illustrated History of the Anishinabe (2001), and The Third Colour (2019).
He was perhaps best known for creating the character “Joe From Winnipeg” who appeared on CBC Radio and Television in the 1990s. Several of his monologues were later published in two books, The Book of Joe (1999) and Joe From Winnipeg: All My Best (2004). In 2020, he began leading the Pimootayowin Creators Circle program of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre to support the development of new plays by Manitoba-based Indigenous artists. He taught theatre at the University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba where he was known for a lighthearted teaching style.
He died on 5 November 2025.
“Governor General’s award-winning playwright Ian Ross, 57, ‘left a lot of love behind’: artistic director,” CBC News, 19 November 2025.
“Playwright, educator known as Joe From Winnipeg, Ian Ross dies at 57,” Winnipeg Free Press, 19 November 2025.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 22 November 2025.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 22 November 2025
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