Evalyn Parry

Who is Evalyn Parry?

Evalyn Parry is a Canadian Quaker singer/songwriter and actor/playwright/director who grew up in Toronto, Ontario in the Kensington Market Neighborhood. Her music combines spoken word and folk.

Parry has performed at numerous music, poetry and Pride festivals across North America, including Toronto Pride Week, Hillside Festival, The Ontario Council of Folk Festivals]annual conference, North by Northeast Music and Film Conference and Festival, The Vancouver Storytelling Festival, the CKCU Ottawa Folk Festival, the National Arts Centre, the Lincoln Center Out of Doors in New York City. Parry sometimes performs with the group Girls with Glasses, a quartet of female songwriters including Parry, Eve Goldberg, Allison Brown, and Karyn Ellis.

Parry is also extensively involved in the Canadian theatre scene, and has had her plays produced at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille and others. She writes and performs with the all-female theatre company Independent Aunties. Parry's 2011 musical and theatrical show SPIN makes use of an electronically amplified bicycle to accompany a cycle of songs and stories that chronicle the history of women and cycling in the late 19th century. Parry is the director of the Young Creators Unit at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. She is the recipient of the Ken McDougall Award for Upcoming Director, Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award and the Beth Ferguson Award for Upcoming Songwriter. In 2012, she directed Buddies' production of Tawiah M'carthy's Obaaberima, garnering a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Play.