Novelist, poet, filmmaker, director, actor, and drag queen extraordinaire.... Sky Gilbert is one of Canada's most controversial artistic forces. He was the co-founder and Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for 18 years. In 1997 Sky Gilbert left Buddies to have more time for creative pursuits.

At Buddies, Mr. Gilbert wrote and directed his own hit plays: THE DRESSING GOWN (published by the Playwright's Union 1989), PLAYMURDER (published by Blizzard in 1995), DRAG QUEENS ON TRIAL (published by Playwright's Canada Press in 1996), BAN THIS SHOW (about the controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe) , PASOLINI/PELOSI and CAPOTE AT YADDO (published by Coach House Press). Many of his plays enjoyed international touring. DRAG QUEENS IN OUTER SPACE had a triumphal run at Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco in 1989. In 1996 Buddies toured Sky Gilbert's play TEN RUMINATIONS ON AN ELEGY WRITTEN BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE to London England's Riverside Studios. The play then toured to Brighton and Cardiff. In 1990 Sky received the Dora Award (Toronto's "Tony") for playwrighting for his play THE WHORE'S REVENGE. Mr. Gilbert's plays have been produced in New York City (at 'The Glines'), Chicago (at Bailiwick Theatre), San Francisco, Houston, Phoenix, Vancouver, and Montreal.

As a director of other's work, Mr. Gilbert's list of credits is also extensive. For the Shaw Festival (in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario) Mr. Gilbert directed ANYTHING GOES, and Wilde's SALOME and was the assistant director for the original Shaw Festival production of CYRANO DE BERGERAC. Other critically acclaimed productions directed by Sky Gilbert include: TREATMENT for Another Stage, HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE for Theatre Direct and THE LINDROS TRIAL for Twinkle Twinkle Theatre. Mr. Gilbert received Ontario's prestigious Pauline McGibbon Award for directing in 1985 and the Dora Award for the production of his play SUZIE GOO: PRIVATE SECRETARY in 1992.

Sky Gilbert started making films in 1990 and has written/directed/ /produced three films which have played at film festivals around the world including Hong Kong, London, San Francisco, L.A. and Melbourne. He describes his own work as "quirky cinema verite which documents the drug and sexual underground of Toronto". His films star his friends in the theatre and the sex trade industry. His fourth film - I AM THE CAMERA, DYING - premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1998, and his third feature length film My Summer Vacation was released on video in 1999 by Waterbearer Films..

Sky has published 5 novels -- his most recent novel Brother Dumb (2007 ECW Press) was described by Canada's Quill and Quire as "a well paced and provocative book that sets itself an enormous creative challenge." His fourth novel An English Gentleman received Canada' ReLit Award in 2005, and his first novel Guilty was described thusly by The Village Voice thusly: "Guilty is pleasure." Sky is much in demand reading his own work at "performance poetry" sessions, and his collection of poems, DIGRESSIONS OF A NAKED PARTY GIRL, was published by ECW Press in October 1998 and his second collection of poems Temptations for a Juvenile Delinquent was published in 2003.

Since leaving Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in 1997, Sky has worked as an Assistant Professor in The School of English and Theatre Studies at Guelph University. In 2005 Sky received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. In 2006 Dr. Gilbert was honoured to be named University Research Chair in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies at Guelph.