Robert Motum

Robert Motum is a Canadian playwright and theatre creator. He is noted for his background in site-specific performance and for his 2018 play, A Community Target.

Personal life and education
Motum was born in Oshawa, Ontario. He attended the University of Waterloo for his BA in Drama and Aberystwyth University for his MA in Practising Performance. He is currently completing a PhD in performance studies at the University of Toronto and teaches at Sheridan College.

Theatre career
As a site-specific theatre practitioner, Motum has a history of staging new theatrical work outside of purpose-built auditoriums. His 2013 play, Transience, was staged on an active Grand River Transit city bus as it circled its loop of Kitchener-Waterloo. He has since staged work in public parks, in a Queen Street art gallery, inside a vacant Target store, in a castle, throughout the streets of Hamilton, Ontario, and in augmented reality. His work has been supported by the Stratford Festival, the Ellen Ross Stuart Opening Doors Award, Outside the March and others.

His verbatim play, A Community Target, is based on interviews with over 60 former employees of Target Canada and recounts the dramatic collapse of the retailer in the country. Staged inside a vacant Target store in Hamilton, Ontario, the piece garnered national and international media attention.

Academic scholarship
Motum has written about the ethics of site-specific performance for various academic publications including the Canadian Theatre Review and Theatre Research in Canada. Motum also researches the political performance of micronationhood and has organised a symposium on subversive states in 2023 at the University of Toronto.