Overton, Jennifer
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Jennifer Overton is an actor, educator and writer living in Halifax. Her professional acting credits span thirty years with major roles in theatre, television, and film. She holds an M.F.A. in Theatre Performance from York University, and spent ten years on faculty in the Acting Program in the Theatre Department at Dalhousie University. Her initial writings about the challenges and joys of life with her autistic son aired to great acclaim on CBC Radios First Person Singular series. The success of these reflections has brought her publication in magazines and journals as well as her first book, Snapshots of Autism: A Family Album (2003, Jessica Kingsley pub.) Her award-winning play about her journey to acceptance of her sons autism, Gods Middle Name (2010, Scirocco Drama), was invited to Magnetic North and enjoyed a very successful Canadian national tour, and it earned Jennifer the 2007 Robert G. Merritt Award for Outstanding New Play and the award for Outstanding Production from In Good Company Theatre, as well as being twice shortlisted for the prestigious Lieutenant Governors Masterworks Award. It was invited to Nightwood Theatre's Groundswell Festival in 2013. An abridged school version of the play toured with Theatre New Brunswick's Young Company in 2014, and will play to family and school audiences in Halifax Theatre for Young People's production as part of Eastern Front Theatre's Stages Festival in June, 2015. Jennifers play about autism aimed at school audiences, Spelling 2-5-5, premiered at Carousel Players in March 2012, went on to Eastern Front Theatre's SuperNova Festival, and was remounted by Carousel for an Ontario and extensive Nova Scotia school tour in 2014. The play had its American premiere at the Children's Theatre of Charlotte in the 2013/14 season. It has been invited back to CT of Charlotte for a limited tour in the 2014/15 season. Carousel Players will produce Spelling 2-5-5 once again in the Spring of 2016 for a southern Ontario tour which will include a short run at the Grand Theatre in London. She and husband David Overtons one person theatre piece, My Titanic, about her experience working on the blockbuster film, premiered at the SuperNova Festival in Halifax in May 2011. Jennifer was a contributing writer on the CBC Radio drama Backbencher.