Darrin Hagen
Winner of the 2025 Wallace Stegner Grant for the Arts.
DARRIN HAGEN is an award-winning filmmaker, playwright, author, composer, performer, and Queer historian. He has created over 40 plays, and dozens of published essays and articles, many dealing with the history of sexual minorities in Alberta, and is also the artistic director of the wildly popular award-winning Fringe drag theatre company Guys In Disguise.
He has been on or near a stage in Edmonton his entire adult life, beginning as a drag performer in Edmonton’s Queer underground 40 years ago. His body of work spans disciplines, and is constantly evolving. He has been creating and producing theatre for four decades, mainly as a playwright but also as performer and composer. He has been defiantly out of the closet - not just in the arts community but even on live television - for his entire career.
He is writer, director and composer for the full-length documentary Pride vs. Prejudice: The Delwin Vriend Story, which is currently enjoying success on the film festival circuit across North America and Europe, and just received the Edmonton Film Prize for his efforts. He also created the libretto for the brand-new opera Silence which made its world premiere in 2025.
Plays by Darrin include his award-winning 1996 debut, The Edmonton Queen (published by Brindle & Glass Publishing, now in its fourth printing), and Tornado Magnet: A Salute to Trailer Court Women. More plays include the Sterling-nominated Buddy, Witch Hunt at the Strand, The Empress & The Prime Minister, Metronome, 10 Funerals, PileDriver! as well as the international hits BitchSlap!, and With Bells On which was adapted into a musical by New York City’s Live & In Color.
He has created and directed the award-nominated music video for Only Here on Loan by King of Foxes, the dance film Shadow of a Doubt with Gerry Morita, the silent experimental short Presence in the Third Space, and the comedy short The Foxy Lady Disco Dancing Lounge Rhinestone Turkey Baster Relay Marathon. He also hosted the web series Queer Places, produced by TelusOptik.
Plays co-written for Guys In Disguise with collaborator Trevor Schmidt include Prepare for the Worst, Don’t Frown at the Gown, Puck Bunnies, Crack In the Mirror, Microwave Coven, the multiple award-nominated musical Klondykes, and the award-winning Flora & Fawna’s Field Trip (and its sequel, Flora & Fawna Have Beaver Fever).
His digital portfolio is expanding rapidly: Darrin is the writer / host / director of Edmonton’s Queer History Project’s podcast From Here To Queer, as well as the award-nominated podcast Vriend Vs. Alberta, produced by the Well Endowed Podcast. His many essays on Edmonton’s Queer history can be found online at Edmonton City As Museum Project.
Plays by Darrin have been presented across Canada, in the United States and Europe. He has received 7 Sterling awards for his work in Edmonton theatre, and the AMPIA for Best Male Host for the series Who’s On Top? In 2005 he was named one of 100 Edmontonians of the Century. In 2013 he was inducted into the Q Hall of Fame Canada for his contribution to Queer Canadian culture, and was named by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts as one of the 25 Most Influential Alberta artists in the last 25 years. In 2025, he was named as one of Edify Magazine’s “6 Who Inspire”.
website: www.guysindisguise.ca