Kathleen Flaherty Prize - Playwrights Theatre Centre

We are pleased to transform the Fringe New Play Prize into the Kathleen Flaherty Prize, in honour of a foundational dramaturg and a leader of PTC from 2012-2020. Kathleen was an early steward of the prize, setting the precedent for the dramaturgy and development of artists entering their theatre and performing arts careers. With great love and gratitude, we are proud to name this prize as a memorial to her legacy. To learn more about Kathleen, read more here.

The Kathleen Flaherty Prize is a reimagined artist development program designed to elevate bold, new voices in live performance. Open to emerging* artists across British Columbia working in any genre — from theatre and clowning to drag, burlesque, music, and more — this program supports the creation of original work and champions innovation, inclusion, and artistic growth.

2025-2026 Prize Winners

LIVE IN HELL by Marita Michaelis with Lauren Han and Alexandra (Ali) McDougall

LIVE IN HELL synopsis:
In this solo performance, a she-devil takes accountability for all the abject horrors of the world, taking credit for her many terrible, sinful, and undeniably cool inventions. She pulls us into a makeshift hellscape full of pointing fingers, vulgar gestures, and self-obsession. Tongue-in-cheek, LIVE IN HELL asks: how can we grapple with the evil of the everyday in a world where “bad” things are good and the status quo is a death machine?

Meet the Creatives behind LIVE IN HELL

Marita Michaelis is an interdisciplinary artist and library worker from so-called “vancouver.” She works in collaborative music projects, devised theatre, illustration, textiles, and performance. Her work often takes shape as lo-fi camp antagonism: joyful violations with an arts-and-crafts aesthetic. Marita is interested in the art of the gimmick, troubling her own relationship to wage labour, and fabricating new possibilities of space and time. She constructs cartoon performances that play the line between authenticity and the artificial.

Lauren Han is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and arts worker born on Treaty 7 territory in Mohkínstsis/Calgary and currently based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Their practice includes devising and performing for theatre; writing performance texts, poetry, and critique; and experimenting in other mediums like filmmaking, songwriting, and animation. They are also an emerging arts organizer, having recently completed an internship with UNIT/PITT and currently developing community spaces and events as a member of ANTS/ASS and Through The Wormhole Theatre Collective. Across their work, Lauren is interested in hybrid forms, genres, and approaches; building relationships; getting curious and sharing knowledge; and exploring what art and art spaces can bring to the communities around them.

Alexandra (Ali) McDougall is an interdisciplinary artist and arts worker based in so-called Vancouver. Working across performance-making and community-based practice, she has a restless curiosity about the intersections of bodies, environments, and systems. Garbage—especially plastic—serves as both material and subject in her work. Ali is the Artistic Director of the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, an annual multidisciplinary community arts and culture festival. Bridging performance, nearly two decades in hospitality, and a background in interior design, she brings care, cohesion, and responsiveness to shaping creative containers where artists and communities are nourished. Select project credits include co-directing Mayor of Oz (2024, Carnegie Learning Centre/DTES Heart of the City Festival), co-creating an ongoing community karaoke series with Culture Saves Lives, and creating Into the Plastisphere (2023, LIVE ACTS VOL II Festival). She has also performed in Jami Reimer’s Soft Tongues: A Bioacoustic Opera (2024, rEvolver Festival).

Applications for 2025-2026 are now closed.

What the Kathleen Flaherty Prize offers:

13 months of dramaturgical support with PTC Dramaturg, Davey Samuel Calderon
Minimum 3 weeks of free rehearsal space to bring your vision to life
Production mentorship for producers or producing teams — including grant writing, production planning, and fundraising support
Artist passes to the 2025 Vancouver Fringe Festival
A guaranteed spot on the Fringe Mainstage in September 2026 — no lottery, no fees!

The Kathleen Flaherty Prize is valued at $16,000: ($45 Fringe application fee, $850 Fringe participation fee + $2500 Fringe venue costs + $2230 in studio space + $4500 of dramaturgy + $3200 of production mentorship + $2675 script copying + promotion + fundraising support etc).
All production costs not listed above are the responsibility of the prize winner.

Whether your project is rooted in storytelling or spectacle, this is your chance to develop it with guidance and resources from the Vancouver Fringe Festival and Playwrights Theatre Centre, two leading organizations in BC’s performing arts scene.

*We define “emerging” as any artists or playwrights who identify early in their performing arts career, and have had less than 5 years of publicly doing their practice.

God’s A Drag

by Jessica Lemes da Silva

Dramaturg: Davey Calderon

Premiere Date: September 6, 2024

Winner of Playwright Theatre Centre’s Fringe New Play Prize and presented as part of the 2024 Vancouver Fringe Festival.

Come as you are. Worship how you imagine.

God’s A Drag by Jessica Lemes da Silva follows Neveah, a young queer woman in Mission, BC whose genderqueer pastor starts a Drag prayer hour in their church. This little piece of heaven, a place where Neveah affirms her queerness and spirituality, doesn’t last long as protestors show up. After some unexpected consequences — and guided by two queer saints — Neveah goes on a journey of self-discovery. With a sprinkle of Drag as prayerful worship, this story celebrates what it is to be unapologetically queer and holy.

Developed through Arts Club Emerging Playwrights’ Unit (2022), with the assistance of PTC as the Fringe New Play Prize Winner (2023-2024).

This production is generously supported by the City of Vancouver, Playwrights Theatre Centre, Vancouver Fringe Festival, and the generosity of community donors.

“I am overjoyed and completely thrilled to have been awarded the Fringe New Play Prize. I’m deeply grateful to Playwrights Theatre Centre and The Vancouver Fringe for providing such a wonderful opportunity to move this work forward with guidance and support. I’m excited to collaborate with talented local artists and to connect with audiences near and far!”– Jessica Lemes da Silva

Playwright: Jessica Lemes da Silva
Director: Jack Bumbala
Dramaturg: Davey Samuel Calderon
Co-Producer: Olivia Etey
Co-Producer: Jessica Lemes da Silva
Stage Manager: Julia Abreu
Assistant Stage Manager: Bernice Paet
Technical Director: Christian Ching
Lighting Designer: Victoria Bell
Sound Designer: Cindy Kao
Set & Props Designer: Monica Emme
Costume Designer: Alexa Fraser

“God’s A Drag is a testament to claiming, reclaiming, and proclaiming faith, identity, relationship, and ultimately God on our terms. Jessica’s writing reflects one of liberation theologies’ central teachings: our lives, our stories, our experiences are sacred texts that reveal God’s presence.”
— delfín bautista, Director of the Lionel Cantú Queer Center at University of California – Santa Cruz

“Bright, giving and deeply humorous, God’s A Drag will leave you in an unforgettable experience of queer joy and spiritual liberation that invites all to be a part of. ”
— Davey Samuel Calderon, PTC’s Dramaturg, Public Engagement and Vancouver Theatre Artist

“Now, more than ever, we need stories like God’s a Drag. Queer and trans affirming Christianity has always existed, and it’s time the whole world knew.”
— The Reverend Clare Morgan

The Frontliners

by Zahida Rahemtulla

Dramaturg: Davey Samuel Calderon

Vancouver, British Columbia—Late January 2016. Canada is in the throes of resettling the first wave of 25,000 Syrian refugees. As three frontline workers battle Vancouver’s housing crisis to move families out of an East Van hotel, their lives are brought together in ways that irreversibly shape them.

Unscripted: The Frontliners
A live stream featuring a mix of live and pre-recorded conversations with expert speakers and audiences engaging via Youtube Live. Unscripted: The Frontliners allows for deeper conversations about the representation of minority groups and their narratives in theatre, the immense pressure immigrant frontline workers are under during a refugee crisis, and larger conversations around how newcomers are and aren’t portrayed in news and media discussed with hosts Zahida Rahemtulla and Davey Samuel Calderon with their guest speakers. Along with filmed recordings of scene excerpts brought to life by the workshop team.

Workshop Credits
Curated and Written by Zahida Rahemtulla
Dramaturg: Davey Samuel Calderon
Sound Designer: Heather Kemski
Production Management: Maria Zarrilo
Production Coordinator: Olivia Etey
Technical Coordinator: Jack Goodison
Videographer and Editor: Gabriel Ordoñez Cifuentes
Cultural Consultants: Oussayma Canbarieh, Farooq al Sajee and Majd Dagha
Guest Speakers: Gulalai Habib, Bal Brach and Oussayma Canbarieh
Workshop Actors: Mostafa Shaker, Tom Pickett and Sabrina Vellani

Developed with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. This play has been developed through PTC’s New Play in Development Prize/Fringe New Play Prize.

Catalina La O presenta: Ahora Conmigo

Created by jk jk (khattieQ, musician/performer; Jenny Larson-Quiñones, director/writer)

Dramaturg: Joanna Garfinkel

Premiere Date: June 23, 2022

Catalina La O presenta: Ahora Conmigo, draws inspiration from Puerto Rican musical legends Myrta Silva, Lucecita Benitez, and Yolandita Monge. This interactive, bilingual cabaret performance is part (physical) clown show, part punk rock performance, y todo emoción performed by khattieQ.

Catalina La O’s mother is lost, unable to join her in Puerto Rico for the finale taping of Catalina’s one-hour TV program, “Ahora Conmigo.” Then a destructive hurricane hits Puerto Rico and throws Catalina into her darkest hour. Emerging from the aftermath, wet and wounded, Catalina seeks refuge in her television studio. Though her backing band and television crew have all gone missing, Catalina believes her beloved audience still survives. She sings and performs to them and to herself, sharing stories and songs of heartbreak, resistance, and survival.

Interested in applying for this program?

Fringe shows are the poster children for self-produced theatre – Fringe shows allow an artist or a company to develop their aesthetic and find their audience. Through the Fringe New Play Prize, PTC and the Vancouver Fringe offer BC artists a leg up in the process with material support – eighteen months dramaturgy, some free creation and rehearsal space, production mentorship, and a free space on the Fringe Mainstage. All told, the Fringe New Play Prize is a juicy package with a $18,000 value: ($800 Fringe application fee + $2500 Fringe venue costs + $2000 in studio space + $7000 of dramaturgy + $3000 of production mentorship + $2700 script copying + promotion + fundraising support etc).

Applications for the 2025 Fringe New Play Prize will open in July 2024 and are due in early October.

The Kathleen Flaherty Prize

2025-2026 Prize Winners

Meet the Creatives behind LIVE IN HELL

God’s A Drag

Come as you are. Worship how you imagine.

The Frontliners

Catalina La O presenta: Ahora Conmigo

Artists Involved:

2024

2020

2019

2018

2015

Interested in applying for this program?

Find opportunities for artists. See work as it's being made.

The Kathleen Flaherty Prize

2025-2026 Prize Winners

Meet the Creatives behind LIVE IN HELL

God’s A Drag

Related Tags:

Come as you are. Worship how you imagine.

The Frontliners

Catalina La O presenta: Ahora Conmigo

Artists Involved:

2024

2020

2019

2018

2015

Interested in applying for this program?

Find opportunities for artists. See work as it's being made.