Announcing the PTC Associates 2021-24
We are pleased to announce that we have chosen four playwrights as PTC Associates 2021-24: Mercedes Bátiz-Benét, Mily Mumford, Kamila Sediego and José Teodoro.
The four Associates are developing fantastic new projects:
Inspired by controversial figure Malintzin, the Indigenous Nahua lover and interpreter of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, Mercedes Bátiz-Benét’s La Malinche uses historical events as a lens to explore what it means to be a Mexican woman today.
Mily Mumford’s It Lives in My Bedroom is an immersive play about the effects of sexualized violence in intimate relationships on survivor’s experiences and subsequent relationships. It uses narrative, new media and technology to explore PTSD from a survivor’s perspective, and centres the experience of queer, female and non-binary/gender non-conforming people.
Kamila Sediego’s Engkanto is a dark fairytale, melding Filipinx folklore, the weight of family legacy, and the climate crisis all together. The play’s central character Lara deals with the revelation that her “human” dad, Dante, is actually a malevolent engkanto, a Philippine enchanted spirit, punisher, and bestower of misfortune to those who mistreat the sea.
Set within the BC interior during the wildfires of 2003, and in Buenos Aires in March 2020, just as the pandemic has begun to turn the world upside-down, José Teodoro’s Binary Star explores the twinned limits of geography and language, and the fissures and fidelities of troubled, ardent love.
The PTC Associates will be in residence with PTC for three years beginning in the summer of 2021, developing a central project – and their practice – with PTC dramaturgs. The writers will receive a stipend, process design, dramaturgical collaboration, workshops with actors, studio space, support finding producing partners, digital and technical experience and support; and opportunities to present their work in progress directly to the communities they are in conversation with, online, and in programs like our Unscripted Series. They will participate in regular collegial discussions with each other and PTC staff.
We are deeply grateful for the many high-quality applications we received from playwrights from across the country.
Mercedes Bátiz-Benét (she/her) is a Mexican-born multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and award-winning director, privileged and grateful to live, work, and create on the unceded traditional territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋən, WSÁNEĆ, and Wyomilth peoples of the Coast Salish Nation. Known for her emotionally potent and surrealist style, she has written, co-written, and directed numerous plays that have toured nationally and internationally. In 2014, Mercedes won the Canadian Stage Award for Direction at the SummerWorks Festival in Toronto with her play El Jinete – A Mariachi Opera. In 2015 she was chosen as the Distinguished Alumna of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria, and in 2020 she directed Fado, The Saddest Music in the World by Elaine Avila (Firehall/Puente), which won the JAYMAC Award for Outstanding Production at the Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards. Mercedes is the artistic director of Puente Theatre where her mission is to advocate for the inclusion, representation, and development of immigrant, IBPOC, and culturally diverse voices.
Mily Mumford (they/them) is a queer femme and trans immersive theatre creator and playwright, filmmaker and screenwriter based in unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory (“Vancouver”). Their work often explores the intersections of science, technology and social justice, and aims to elevate voices pushed to the margins through a science fiction lens. Recent work includes The Cinephiles (producer/performer/projection artist) – a film/drag queer multimedia series; and the local award-winning short films (writer/director) Gemini (2018), First Bite (2019), and Operation Gingham (2020). Upcoming works include the pod-play The Void, produced as a part of It’s Not a Box Theatre’s Isolata Series, and Controller, a choose-your-own-adventure play developed as part of Mumford’s participation in the inaugural Arts Club Emerging Playwright’s Unit in 2019. In addition to creative work, Mumford is a MSc. candidate at Simon Fraser University in Interactive Technology, where they research reality based mental health support for long-term space travel.
Kamila Sediego (she/her/siya) is a first-generation Filipinx settler and playwright, privileged and grateful to live on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Her work is a celebration of the richness of her culture, the dramas of family dynamics, and the complexities of the Filipinx diaspora. Her favourite thing is to weave humour and magic with the tragedies of every day. It is only with the care and support of many around her that she is expanding her skills into dramaturgy and currently developing two of her shows, Homecoming and Engkanto. Over the years, she has graciously worked closely with Urban Ink, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, PTC, and incredible mentors like Corey Payette, Reneltta Arluk, Joanna Garfinkel, Hazel Venzon, Rachel Ditor, and many more. If she isn’t writing, she’s drinking bubble tea and/or convincing her baby niece to say “tita.”
José Teodoro’s plays include Mote, The Tourist and Cloudless, which was recently adapted into an audio-drama presented by Canadian Stage. José is co-author, with Mexican artist Laura Barrón, of Cathedral, a bilingual 3.5-metre-long book of text and image. The Rusted Floor, José’s recent essay about dreams, ghosts, architecture and the pandemic, appeared in Brick 106. José is also a culture writer, contributing essays, interviews and reviews to publications such as The Globe & Mail, Film Comment and The Literary Review of Canada. José’s current projects include a book of conversations with filmmaker Peter Mettler, a screen adaptation of Cloudless for producer Hugh Gibson, a book-length work of literary nonfiction, and new performance works, such as Island, which was developed as part of PTC’s WrightSpace program and the Banff Playwrights Retreat, and Binary Star, which he’ll be developing as a PTC Associate. joseteodoro.com