ACTRESS

 

Theatre
A graduate of Vancouver’s Studio 58 Theatre School, Sharon Bajer has been acting for over thirty years. Internationally Sharon has studied Suzuki Method and Strindberg Study in Denmark and toured her work to Haifa and Tel Aviv, Israel. In Canada she has performed in nearly every province in our country in over 100 productions, for over 30 companies. Of those 100 productions, nearly 50 of them were Canadian, and over 25 were premieres.

She has been described in the press as “delightful”, “always fabulous”, “goes beyond stereotype”, “a powerful tour-de- force”, and, “her mighty voice, her dynamic movements, her very essence fill the theatre and make it hard to believe that that much life force is contained within one person”. 

 

She has shared the stage with some of Canada’s greatest theatre artists including her mentors and pioneers of Canadian theatre, Shirley Douglas, and Martha Henry. Her performance with the latter in the Pulitzer Prize Winning play August Osage County was described in the Winnipeg Free Press as “a career milestone” and Kelly Nestruck of The Globe and Mail quoted in his review “I came to Winnipeg to see the great Martha Henry and left asking myself who is Sharon Bajer?”

Her award-winning acting career has been diverse and compelling. Whether it is classical works, new works, musical theatre, theatre for young audiences, puppetry, clown, or mask, Sharon always delights and moves audiences with performances built on universal human truths. She won Winnipeg’s Evie Anderson Award for Best Actress for the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s production of Hand to God mere months after completing chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation for Stage 3 breast cancer. 

 

She is a valued member of the National acting community but there is nowhere else in Canada where she is more valued than in Winnipeg, Manitoba. For over 30 years she has built a reputation as a leader in the rehearsal hall who leads by example through hard work, creativity, bravery, and humility.

 

Throughout her career she has consistently given back to the community through master classes, guest lectures, private coaching, non-profit board appointments, volunteering, and fundraising. Most notably, during the 2020 pandemic she developed a mentorship group to provide space to mourn the loss of work, practice their craft, and find community.

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Film

Sharon Bajer is a prominent member of Winnipeg’s growing film and television scene, having appeared in many Made-in Manitoba productions, run a Film Acting School, introduced Intimacy Coordination to the Province, and served as the President of ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) Manitoba from 2001-2006.

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As an actress, she has appeared in over 75 films and television series. Sharon has shared the screen with Judith Light, Bob Odenkirk, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Burstyn, Malcolm McDowell, Sarah Paulson, Richard Gere, Bobby Canavale, Stanley Tucci, Christina Ricci, Julia Stiles, Alfre Woodard, Matthew Modine, Timothy Busfield, Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly, Bruce Greenwood, John Turturro, Shirley MacLaine, and many others. 

 

She has been nominated numerous times for ACTRA’s acting award distinctions and in 2024 was the recipient of ACTRA Manitoba’s Woman of the Year award.

DIRECTOR
A graduate of the inaugural Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction at Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Sharon assistant directed Richard III and Two Gentleman of Verona. Her subsequent directing highlights include the Centennial production of Strike! The Musical for Rainbow Stage, Outside Mullingar, Lunenburg, and Run for Your Wife at Festival Antigonish, Little Thing, Big Thing and Fly Me to the Moon for Prairie Theatre Exchange and Meet My Sister and The Best Brothers for Western Canada Theatre.

 

In 2014 Sharon was Rainbow Stage’s Director in Residence on three large-scale musical productions. In 2019, she was tasked with re-visioning and directing Rainbow Stage’s production of Strike! The Musical for the 100th Anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike. The production was a critical success and a fan favourite with a vision that included all her training and talents. Audiences enjoyed actors playing instruments, utilizing mask, exploring clown, and universal human truths. 

 

Her directing work, whether it has been on classical text, contemporary comedies/dramas, musical theatre, or theatre for young audiences, her work has consistently received incredible notices, helped theatre artists shine, and has brought audiences to their feet. 

PLAYWRIGHT
Sharon is the author of seven full-length plays, two full-length musicals, ten short plays, four one act plays, four short libretti, two one-woman shows, and one play for young audiences. 

 

Sharon mentored with Governor General Award-winning playwright Vern Thiessen at the LaBella Vita Writing Retreat in Castiglioncello, Italy and studied at Tapestry New Opera’s Composer Librettist Lab. She was nominated for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer in 2005 and was a valued, founding member of Prairie Theatre Exchange’s Playwright’s Unit for 15 years. 

Sharon’s “stunning professional debut” (Winnipeg Free Press), Molly’s Veil premiered at Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange in 2005. Molly’s Veil explored the secret love affair between Canada’s first female mayor of a major city (Ottawa), Charlotte Whitton, and her best friend Margaret. The Press referred to her writing as “brilliant" and "a must see" and "absolutely inspired".  Molly’s Veil has had four subsequent performances in BC, Nova Scotia, and two in Ontario with notices saying, “The best production I have ever seen.", "Gripping, funny and surprisingly moving." and "A little bit of everything. Love, laughter, sorrow, and a real look at life". 

 

Her follow up play Burnin’ Love premiered at Prairie Theatre Exchange in 2011 and was described as “a deceptively complex, quirky, and whimsical play” that “brought the opening audience to their feet to say thank you thank you very much.” This play explored Sharon’s family history through fantasy, purgatory, and Elvis. It had a subsequent production at Festival Antigonish in Nova Scotia in 2018. Her musical Hersteria sold out a 10-day run at Prairie Theatre Exchange in at the 2011 Winnipeg International Fringe Festival and was short listed for the New York Music Theatre Festival that same year. 

 

In 2020, her full-length play The Gingerbread Girl (a grown-up fairy tale about adoption) was slated to premiere at Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange. It was canceled just weeks before rehearsals began due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

 

Sharon used the pandemic to mentor young authors and collaborated with two young talents to create two new projects that premiered in recent months. Through Creative Manitoba, Sharon was asked to mentor an emerging Manitoba playwright. Throughout their mentorship, they discovered that they shared experiences in mastectomies, estrogen blockers and the challenges that arose from both. What came of it was a new play called The Outside Inn that explores the relationship between a mother who is facing cancer treatment and her son, who has recently transitioned to be her daughter. The Outside Inn premiered at Festival Antigonish in 2022 starring the authors themselves, Sharon Bajer and Elio Zarrillo. The Outside Inn premiered in Winnipeg at Prairie Theatre Exchange in the spring of 2024.

 

The second project was a full-length musical, two-person musical called Afterlight. The musical explores themes of aging, sexuality, love, death, and what it means to live a life well-lived…through the eyes of an 85-year-old woman and her new flame, a 500-year-old vampire (in a 25-year-old body). Performed by Sharon and her co-creator Duncan Cox, the musical was presented by Winnipeg’s Rainbow Stage in September of 2023 and was called, “a musical you can sink your teeth into” that “packs an emotional punch” and is “vivacious and cheeky” (Winnipeg Free Press).

 

Inspired by her successful battle against Stage 3 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma in 2016 and navigating the loss of her play The Gingerbread Girl, Sharon launched a theatre company of her own: The Keep Theatre. Dedicated to creating and presenting new work, The Keep is Company-in Residence at the newly formed Crescent Arts Centre (CAC) in Winnipeg’s Osborne Village. Her residency at the CAC has created many connections to the diverse artistic community in Winnipeg and both The Keep and the CAC continue to grow and develop into an exciting creative hub in the centre of the city. 

 

The Keep Theatre has produced several beautifully artistic and critically acclaimed productions and most recently produced the premiere of her aforementioned new musical Afterlight.

 

Published Works Include: Molly’s Veil, Generation Nexxt (featured collection), and, The Long and Short of It (featured collection).

 

INTIMACY COORDINATOR 

The role of an Intimacy Coordinator is still a relatively new one in Canada. For film, TV, theatre, & photography, Sharon’s philosophy as an Intimacy Coordinator is to help create an environment that encourages creativity through care, communication and consent in scenes involving simulated sex, nudity, sexual violence and hyper exposed material in film and television. She works as an advocate for actors, a support for directors and the go-to person on set for all departments, coordinating the specific needs of intimate scenes.

 

Sharon began her training with Intimacy Directors International (now IDC - Intimacy Directors and Coordinators) in the United States in 2018 and continued to train through Intimacy Coordinators Canada. 

 

In her capacity as Winnipeg’s first certified Intimacy Coordinator, Sharon has influenced the shaping of consent-culture on all film sets in Manitoba. A recent CBC profile on Sharon quoted one of her director’s in saying, "Sharon is quite brilliant because she speaks very technically, but very much in terms of storytelling, and she makes it very safe to create very authentic-looking intimate moments between the actors,"

 

Sharon has worked steadily as an Intimacy Coordinator since 2020 on such projects as The Porter (series), Skymed (series), Orphan: First Kill (film), Wintertide (film), Alter Boys (series), The Good Doctor (film), Psycho Killer (film), The Long Walk (film), Love Hurts (film), Nobody 2 (film) and Alter (film).

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EDUCATOR 

Sharon has taught theatre and film for ABC Film Academy (Also as Academy director), Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Rainbow Stage, The Keep Theatre, and ACTRA Manitoba. 

 

Sharon has been a guest speaker at Victoria Opera, SM-ARTS Canadian National Conference, ACTRA Manitoba, OnScreen Manitoba, and The Directors Guild of Canada.

 

Most recently Sharon was a featured panelist at Film Training Manitoba’s inaugural SWIFT (Supporting Women in the Film Trades) Conference. Earlier this year Sharon was the recipient of The Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making a Mark award for her contribution to the theatre community.