Nationality 1: Canadian

Birthdate: 1956

Born on an army base in West Germany in 1956, MacDonald was the daughter of a Lebanese woman and a Canadian soldier of Scottish heritage. She grew up with two sisters and one brother in a strict Catholic family that moved several times before settling in Ottawa, Canada. MacDonald was a high-achieving student, and her parents encouraged her to study law, but instead she left Carleton University in Minnesota to attend the National Theatre School in Montreal. After graduation, MacDonald moved to Toronto and became involved in collaborative theater projects, including This Is for You, Anna (1984). While living in Toronto, MacDonald came out as a lesbian, and her family accepted this fact gradually.

MacDonald's writing career began with projects that included a libretto to the contemporary opera Nigredo Hotel (produced in 1992), but her first solo venture was Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) (1990). The play...