Alex McLean

Co-Artistic Director

A picture of Alex McLean. He is wearing a blue button-up shirt. He is standing with his arms crossed, his head slightly cocked to one side, and has a pleasant smile on his face. The background is white.

Alex McLean is a theatre artist based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. He is a co-artistic director of Halifax’s Zuppa Theatre Co. and co-wrote and directed most of the company's shows between 1999 and 2023. Recent works with Zuppa are  tiny (in collaboration with Vertical City), touring shows The Movements, The Archive of Missing Things and Pop-Up Love Party, which have been seen across Canada and the UK. He leads the company's This is Nowhere program, building large-scale live/digital performances that explore and examine the built environment.

With his ad hoc group Surplus Production Unit, he directed and wrote (from verbatim sources) A Timed Speed-Read of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Trial Transcript with Additional Notes. With Ker Wells he was a founding member of Number Eleven Theatre (1998-2006), and he holds an M.A. from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies. He serves as a board member for Halifax's Matchstick Theatre.

A specialist in devising, Alex has taught extensively, published scholarly articles, and collaborated with practitioners across multiple disciplines. His work explores the past, the present, and things that are too big to grasp or too small to contain.