Marianne Ackerman was born in Belleville, Ontario and grew up on a farm in Prince Edward County.

[citation needed] She spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris studying French language and culture before receiving a Master of Arts in Drama from the University of Toronto in 1981.

The company also staged Echo, a play developed by Robert Lepage from Ann Diamond's book of poetry, A Nun's Story, co-produced with Theatre Passe Muraille.

Venus of Dublin, a distilled version of the story, premiered at the Centaur Theatre in 2000, and has since been produced several times.

[citation needed] After leaving Theatre 1774 and Quebec in 1997, she lived in the hamlet of La Roque Alric, France, moving back to Montreal in 2004.