Hope is originally from Saskatoon, where she grew up and received her BFA in theatre performance. She then received her MFA in directing at the University of Victoria, spent a year apprenticing as a performer in England and three years working in theatre in Toronto before resettling in Winnipeg.
Hope was Artistic Director of Sarasvàti Productions from 1998 to 2020. Her own scripts Revisioning and Hunger were produced by the company in Toronto. As well, her script Missiah received a public workshop.
Since its premiere, Hunger has been published in Meriwether Publishing’s International Plays for Young Audiences and has been remounted in Winnipeg . Hope’s play Death of Love won UNI Theatre’s International Playwriting Contest in 2000 and received a public workshop in June 2002.
Her play Trauma won Theatre in the Raw’s One-Act Play competition and was produced in Vancouver in November 2001. Since that time Trauma has been produced in Australia, the U.S.A. and throughout Canada.
Revisioning has been produced across Canada and is published in chapbook form by One Act Play Depot; it was also runner-up of the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award 2002.
Hope received arts grants from both the Winnipeg Arts Council and the Manitoba Arts Council to complete the play Have Mercy (produced at Brandon University in 2003), the play EDEN in 2006, and most recently to workshop The Concept of Time. In the fall of 2008 her commissioned youth play entitled Ripple Effect was performed at FemFest and toured Manitoba schools. EDEN was workshopped in the fall of 2009 and premiered in Winnipeg in 2012. Jail Baby, co-written with Cairn Moore, was produced and published in 2013.
Recently Hope has specialized in community-based collaborations. She was selected for two Winnipeg Arts Council WITH ART projects, creating Empty with a local food bank and Erica in Technoland with the West Broadway Youth Outreach Girls’ World. She facilitated the creation of Giving Voice with youth in and from care, which toured in the fall of 2014. As well a two-year mental health project culminating in Breaking Through, co-written with Cairn Moore, was produced in 2017. A high school version entitled Shattered also toured in 2016. New Beginnings explores resettlement and premiered in May 2018 with a version for youth entitled Home 2.0 touring in the fall of 2018.
As Canadian co-representative to Women Playwrights International Hope has had her work read at conferences in Manila and Jakarta, also facilitating a workshop in Cape Town.
Hope is former Chair of The Women’s Caucus and former President of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She has received the YWCA Women of Distinction Award, the Bra D’Or, the Women Helping Women Award, and Mahatma Gandhi Social Change Award.
Complementing her work as a playwright, Hope continues to freelance as a director and performer, as well as teaching theatre to youth and adults. She has taught at Prairie Theatre Exchange Theatre School, Mount Allison University, Brandon University, the University of Manitoba and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Winnipeg. She is also an accredited Walls to Bridges instructor.