Ensemble Bios

Martin Happer

Martin Happer returns to the Shaw Festival for his seventh season, appearing in French Without Tears and The Millionairess. Last season, Martin appeared in Bernard Shaw’s On the Rocks as Toffy and as Treherne in J.M. Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton.

Martin’s other credits for The Shaw include Belle Moral: A Natural History (including the tour to the National Arts Centre), Getting Married, Saint Joan (including the post-season tour to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater), A Month in the Country, Arms and The Man, Love Among the Russians, You Never Can Tell, Bus Stop, Ah Wilderness! and Man and Superman. He also appeared as Shakespeare in the Reading Series production of Shaw’s Dark Lady of the Sonnets.

Recently, Martin was seen in Nightwood Theatre’s world premiere of The Happy Woman. He has played Richard Hannay in separate productions of The 39 Steps at the Chemainus Theatre Festival and the Vancouver Arts Club. His other theatre credits include Theory at Toronto’s Summer Works Festival; A Boy Called Newfoundland with Theatre Smash; Thy Neighbour’s Wife for Theatre North West; Age of Arousal with Arts Club and Touchstone Theatre; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Lyndesfarne Theatre Projects; Mary’s Wedding at TheatreOne in Nanaimo, BC; Vincent van Gogh in the Canadian premiere of Vincent in Brixton for Theatre Network; the world premiere of Blooms for Nakai Theatre (Whitehorse, Yukon); Language of Angels for Northern Light Theatre; The Tempest, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Richard III and As You Like It for the Free Will Players.

TV credits include Mayday, Murdoch Mysteries, Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye, The Eleventh Hour and Breaker High. Radio and voiceover credits include The Weather Breeder for the Shaw Festival’s Bell Canada Reading Series which later aired on CBC Radio, Luck for CBC Radio, Xenomorph for Electric Playground and speech software for the Canadian Language and Literacy Network.

Martin is a graduate of the University of the Fraser Valley (Theatre Arts) and the University of Alberta’s acting program.

Martin is originally from Abbotsford, BC. He’s a fan of the Vancouver Canucks, big breakfasts, and good rhymes.