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The conversation starts here. Join us in the lively discussion of all things theatre.
PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and Playwrights Theatre Centre are accepting submissions for Dramaturgy Clinics for artists developing new work. The Dramaturgy Clinics are free, 1.5 hour dramaturgical consultations for local artists from any performing arts or interdisciplinary practice currently engaged at any phase in a creative process. Consultations are…
At PTC we aspire to make our company a place where playwrights and theatre artists come together to make necessary new works and stories. This includes our staff, and we’d like to share with you the unique perspective of our incoming Artistic Producer & Dramaturg, Davey Samuel Calderon, on how…
PTC is a home for artists to learn about their own practices, experiment, and fearlessly challenge themselves. We’re raising vital funds to support PTC’s next act. Donate today to Undaunted Creation and continue empowering playwrights in creating urgent, daring, and creatively risky stories on our stages. Join us Monday, December…
This month, we welcome 12 artists to PTC as participants of this year’s Block A and Block D cohorts. BLOCK A is for emerging playwrights/theatre creators and established writers of other mediums excited to write for the stage to work together in a cohort to develop their writing with the…
September 9, 2024 Originally founded in 1970 (as the New Play Centre) PTC has gone from script reading service, to new play festival, to a year-round theatre-making company. More than 50 years on, PTC’s unique focus on dramaturgical practice has made an outsized impact in the Canadian theatre landscape. Stewarded…
Congratulations to Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy on the world premiere of Salesman in China at the Stratford Festival. The play began during Leanna and Jovanni’s time as PTC Associates with dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty. Date: Now to October 26Location: Avon Theatre (99 Downie St, Stratford)Price: $35-77 The Stratford production includes many Vancouver artists…
Congratulations go out to outgoing PTC Associate José Teodoro who’s play, Island, has been awarded the 2024 Lee Playwriting Prize for New Canadian Plays. Selection committee chair Kathleen Weiss had the following to say about the winning piece: “The jury responded to Island so strongly because of its mystery and…
By Jessica Lemes da Silva 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. WHEN: Running September 6, 8-10, 13-14, 2024 WHERE: Waterfront Theatre (1412 Cartwright St., Vancouver, BC) TICKETS: https://www.vancouverfringe.com/events/gods-a-drag/ SOCIALS:…
A ritual, a sharing, a work-in-development. Come together to experience the auditory realm of the in-between. Through a guided sound meditation, a shrine, music, soundscape, food, and scenes from the play in-development, we travel from generation to generation, human world to engkanto kingdom, and the Philippines to Canada, and back…
Playwrights Theatre Centre is searching for mid-career and established playwrights proposing their most ambitious work to date for our Associates program. The program is specifically pointed at work of a scale and depth that couldn’t be completed without PTC’s support. The Associates is a three-year partnership, where each playwright works…
Playwrights are the heart of PTC. We take this moment to share the often invisible art of dramaturgy through our 2020 – 2023 Impact Report – to thank you for being part of the story, and to welcome you to support PTC and the artists who make their home with…
After 12 years as Artistic and Executive Director of Playwrights Theatre Centre, Heidi Taylor will be leaving her role at the end of the year. She will participate in the leadership transition through Fall 2024 and will officially leave her post on December 31st, 2024. PTC’s board of directors will…
Applications for our most popular program for emerging theatre artists and established writers interested in performance: Block A, is now open! Block A is for artists who write for all kinds of performance, including script-driven theatre, from spoken word to performance art to songs – we’ve even had a few screenwriters….
Are you an artist interested in boosting your dramaturgy skills? Applications for PTC’S Block D are open! Whether you identify as a dramaturg or are engaged in dramaturgical and devised performance work, we welcome your application! Block D is for artists who help to shape, nurture and create all kinds…
Take June and July to rejuvenate, meet other community members, and inspire yourself for the autumn to come. We love to meet folks in the community who are interested in trying a new skill or refreshing their practice. All workshops are pay what you choose. Registration is on a first come basis, no experience required.
Support emerging playwright, Jessica Lemes da Silva in bringing her first play, God’s A Drag to the 2024 Vancouver Fringe Festival! A play that champions the representation of Drag and the rights of 2SLGBTQAI+ people in faith communities, premieres at this coming Fringe. Your donation will support Jessica and all…
Who are the people that serve us in our daily lives?Why fight for community-centred neighbourhoods? Where theatre meets community action values. Date: Sunday, June 9, 2024 @ 6:00 pm PT Venue: PL 1422 (1422 William Street, Vancouver, BC)*Price: Pay What You ChooseTickets: Available Soon – register below to save the date and…
We’re excited to announce our WrightSpace 2024 participants: Chelsea McPeake Carlson and Joy Russell! In the upcoming year, Chelsea and Joy will investigate meaningful relationships to the land with PTC Dramaturg, Creative Engagement Joanna Garfinkel during their residencies. Learn more about the program here.
Do you have a creative project on the go? PTC, in collaboration wiht PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, will be hosting Dramaturgy Clinics January 29, 30, & 31, 2024. At whatever stage your work is at, you can ask for a free conversation, free of any production imperatives, to step back,…
by José Teodoro PRESENTED BY PTC Be part of our experiment in reconciling space, time, and relationships. We want your perception of Binary Star. Date: Sunday, February 11, 2024 @ 7:00 pm PT Venue: PL 1422 (1422 William Street, Vancouver, BC)*Ticket access: Pay What You ChoosePTC’s Unscripted series brings playwrights,…
WrightSpace is where PTC welcomes a small group of professional Canadian playwrights to join us for a short-term residency to work on one of their projects. This year, we are inviting proposals for projects with a meaningful relationship to land. We encourage playwrights/creation teams who are developing as or in…
We are pleased to introduce you to the Block A Fall 2023 cohort. These 12 writers will work with mentors David Geary and Nicola Harwood for ten weeks starting this October. Join us in welcoming Tanya Banerjee, Véronique Darwin, Cara DiGirolamo, Chloe Edbrooke, Randi Edmundson, Araceli Ferrara, Tristen Foy, Winona…
Every PTC artist has a story of their “first” with the company. Here’s Savannah Walling’s: September 12, 2023 – Among my fondest memories of PTC’s residence in the Downtown Eastside were our annual get-togethers with Heidi and Kathleen, to confer and devise. We talked about emergent trends in Vancouver’s theatre scene,…
Every PTC artist has a story of their “first” with the company. Here’s Ashley Chodat’s: August 25, 2023 – My first collaboration with PTC was being apart of the Block A Cohort. It was there that I met a fantastic group of writers, including our wonderful facilitator, David Geary. Each…
Every PTC artist has a story of their “first” with the company. Here’s Sangeeta Wylie’s: August 10, 2023 – “Happy anniversary PTC!! I had the immense pleasure of working with Heidi Taylor from 2017-2018 on my first draft of we the same, with the working title, The Boat People. PTC’s…
AED Heidi Taylor, Artistic Associate Alyssa Formosa, and Block D alums Jesse Del Fierro and Ashley Chodat took a dramaturgy road trip together to attend the LMDA Conference in Banff last month! Here’s a peek into their journey: 2023 LMDA Conference Reflection: The Power of Process Before the 2023 LMDA…
Every PTC artist has a story of their “first” with the company. Here’s Momentum 180 Collective’s: July 22, 2022 – This photo marks the first The Parallel Project workshop held in person at the PTC Office. Together with our dramaturg, Anjela Magpantay, Playwright, Natasha Chew, Actor, Sherine Menes, and Producer,…
Every PTC artist has a story of their “first” with the company. Here’s jkjk’s: We love PTC! Here [above] is a picture of jkjk and Joanna Garfinkel working on “Catalina La O Presenta: Now With Me”. AND here is a picture of a draft. Is it the first? Probably not….
PTC PRESENTS UNSCRIPTED: Engkanto by Kamila Sediego A moving research expedition and celebration, a journey to the inbetween. Discover the sensations of interstitial spaces. Isang naglalakbay na ekspedisyon at pagdiriwang, isang paglalakbay sa pagitan. Tuklasin ang mga sensasyon ng panggitnang lawakan. Date: Friday, June 16, 2023 @ 7:00 pm PT Petsa: Biyernes, Hunyo…
Every PTC artist has a story of their “first” with the company. To kick things off, an origin tale from AED Heidi Taylor, who started as Associate Dramaturg in 2005. When I think back to the year that I joined PTC, it feels like a different world. It was 2005,…
Learn to work from archival documents, family history, personal memoir, and other “real” texts in this workshop with Joanna Garfinkel.
Welcome to our new Block D 2023 cohort! These 6 artists will be working with Dramaturg, Creative Engagement Joanna Garfinkel over the next 10 weeks in a small and supportive cohort to expand their dramaturgical tool kits and breadth of experience. Join us in welcoming Victoria Bell, Chelsea Carlson, Ashley…
UNSCRIPTED: It Lives in My Bedroom (ILIMB) is excited to invite you back in-person to PTC on Friday, February 17, 2023 at 7:30pm PST at Progress Lab! Playwright, director and researcher Mily Mumford, with design collaboration by Chimerik 似不像 – Lighting, Projection Design & New Media Art Collective, brings you into the world of It Lives in my Bedroom.
Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep is a transdisciplinary performance by Tanya Marquardt, that tells the story of how they discovered a ‘sleeping self’ named X through their iPhone. The piece imagines what might happen if our ‘waking selves’ and ‘sleeping selves’ met, conversed, and maybe even healed. Two…
Be part of the development and explore the UNSCRIPTED: Mermaid Spring online! PTC and The Public Swoon invite you to enjoy a taste of the development of Mermaid Spring, a new work of interdisciplinary music theatre focused on deep co-creation, slow process and social handcraft. Witness textile artist and representative…
UNSCRIPTED: Mermaid Spring links The Public Swoon’s performative work with the social handcraft that is a parallel thread in their exploration. Collaborating fibre artist Heather Cameron led a visible mending workshop as part of the Unscripted series in March. Heather Cameron is a visual artist of settler heritage, living in…
PTC Platforms is a space to explore the worlds of five projects in development. The playwrights and their collaborators are bringing their themes and imagery into film, audio, illustration, music, and interactives, following their ideas into new online spaces. It’s an invitation to think of theatre as a springboard that…
We are pleased to introduce you to the Block A Fall 2022 cohort. These 12 writers will work with mentors David Geary and Nicola Harwood for ten weeks starting this October. The writers working with David are Andy Kalirai, Ashley Chodat, Jessica Harvey, Krystal Kavita Jagoo, Marya Folinsbee, and Reese…
In our latest installment of our Playwright’s Process series, we chatted with playwright Zahida Rahemtulla, whose play, The Frontliners, will premiere at the Waterfront Theatre in November 2022.
We connected with Argel, one of our current ECD producer-playwrights, to hear about his creation process, his work on The Parallel Project, and his vision for theatre.
PTC is thrilled welcome Amy Amantea to the team as Accessibility Consultant!
In preparation for UNSCRIPTED: Mermaid Spring, our Dramaturg, Creative Engagement, Davey Calderon, caught up with fibre artist Heather Cameron.
Maraya Franca joins us as the PTC Platforms Assistant.
PTC welcomes Lili Robinson as our Community Engagement Producer.
“I Cannot Lie to the Stars That Made Me” meets the need for shared experience by rooting itself to a living embodiment of community in the choral presence, and reminds us of the body frequently, “a guide to moving and healing for women of colour.”
PTC is thrilled to announce our 2022 ECD cohort of playwright-producers: Emmet Hanley, Argel Monte de Ramos, and Alexander Zonjic, with external mentor June Fukumura and dramaturg Joanna Garfinkel.
PTC is pleased to welcome Kit McKeown as our new Communications Manager
We are pleased to introduce you to the Block A Winter 2022 cohort. These 12 writers will work with mentors Joanna Garfinkel and Veronique West for ten weeks starting in January 2022.
Playwright’s Process is a new blog series inspired by Marcel Proust Character Questionnaire, where we introduce you to playwrights and theatre artists that are creating exciting new works. We ask them to choose seven questions from our list that resonate with them. Our first theatre artist for the series is Kagan Goh, a multidisciplinary writer and mental health advocate based on unceded Coast Salish territories.
Meet our Fall 2021 Block A cohort, a group of emerging theatre artists matched with mentors David Geary and Fay Nass.
PTC caught up with Tai about her writing journey, Metis storytelling and her self-made career.
What is the artist’s role with activism and politics? How do we start tackling social and political issues with our art? Are there best practices when making art as activism? PTC Dramaturg – Public Engagement, Davey Calderon and playwright Pedro Chamale dig deep into these questions and more.
We are thrilled to welcome participants in the Vancouver leg of the Digital Dramaturgy Initiative. The cohort will meet September 20-25, 2021 to explore digital dramaturgy for theatre on- and off-line.
Often we want to reach out to strangers from other experiences: is there a best practice for that? We asked MSG Lab Emerging Dramaturg Jesse del Fierro for their perspective on the subject.
We are pleased to announce that we have chosen four playwrights as PTC Associates 2021-24! Find out who they are and learn more about their fabulous projects.
María Escolán and Dominique Wakeland interviewed each other about PTC’s Dramaturg Launch Pad, theatre, holding each other accountable, and the joy of not knowing.
Davey’s personal reflections on online security – an unlikely dramaturgical device – in the making of UNSCRIPTED: yellow objects
PTC AED Heidi Taylor talks with dancer/choreographer/teacher Amber Funk Barton about the creation of her piece How to Say Goodbye, which gained new meaning in the context of the pandemic, coupled with Amber’s decision to leave her company, the response. after 13 years.
Scott Button reflects on Queer history and storytelling through the lens of adapting his play Night Passing into an audio drama.
Joanna asks: What is the capacity of theatre, or really of any art, to effect social action?
A tribute to Indigenous artist, actor, advocate, poet, and playwright, Taran Kootenhayoo, who passed away suddenly on New Year’s Eve 2020.
In the days after experiencing Japanese Problem at the barns at Hastings Park, Kathleen had heard from Joanna that the piece that Universal Limited created on the subject of the Japanese Canadian incarceration during WW2 had significantly steered her dramaturgical practice going forward.
We are pleased to announce that as our Fall 2020 cohort wraps up, we welcome another group of wonderful emerging writers coming into Block A in January 2021.
PTC welcomes three artists joining us January to June, 2021 as part of our Dramaturg Launch Pad, funded by the BC Arts Council’s Early Career Development program.
Meet the WrightSpace 2020 cohort, who will be investigating and applying different means of increasing access under COVID, “Beyond the Zoom.”
A conversation between PTC’s Dramaturg, Creative Engagement – Joanna Garfinkel and Fringe New Play Prize Winners JK JK, Jenny Larson and khattieQ, about the making of Catalina La O presenta: Ahora Conmigo in a constantly changing world.
Kathleen Flaherty (Dramaturg Emeritus/Project Dramaturg) talks with Davey Calderon (Dramaturg, Public Engagement) about how he keeps track of what his body does as he devises new work through exercises and improvisations.
We are pleased to announce that, once again, the number of playwrights submitting to Block A, PTC’s popular program for emerging writers, has been plentiful, so four sessions are being convened, two in the fall and two in winter.
Kathleen finds three big takeaways from her eight years as Dramaturg at PTC.
Kathleen Flaherty, PTC’s Dramaturg since 2012, will retire on October 1, 2020. We celebrate her illustrious career and future endeavours.
PTC is proud to welcome Joanna Garfinkel to the team in the new position of Dramaturg, Creative Engagement. After a robust search and in consultation with the community, Joanna’s excellence in engaged practice, her deep connections in the community, and her significant producing and management knowledge made her the unequivocal choice.
In December of 2019, PTC’s WrightSpace residency program put Catherine Joell MacKinnon and Heidi Taylor in the Studio for 10 days to work on Catherine’s play Inaudibility World. This was PTC’s first engagement with a bilingual ASL/English work. Dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty sat down with Heidi Taylor to talk about the Inaudibility World workshop and some of the discoveries she and Catherine and the team made during those ten days in December.
PTC is recognizing the exceptional leadership contributions of Melanie Yeats, our Operations Manager, as she moves into the new position of Creative Managing Director.
Dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty interviewed Elysse Cheadle, the Writer/Director of High Water, about the unique dramaturgy of this creation in a fish tank.
PTC’s Artistic and Executive Director acknowledges and provides context for her acceptance of the Vancouver NOW Award.
PTC is thrilled to welcome Davey Calderon as our new Dramaturg, Public Engagement. In this position, Davey will lead on our Unscripted program, our Blocks, and our ongoing commitment to engaging communities in the development of new work. He will also continue his own active dramaturgical practice. Learn more about Davey.
We are excited to share vAct’s announcement of the 2020-21 MSG Lab Playwrights. The MSG Lab is vAct’s Playwrighting Theatre Program for developing new Asian Canadian work. Over the next eight months, the MSG playwrights will be receiving development support for their new scripts and working with PTC dramaturgs.
In the late winter of 2020, Kathleen Flaherty asked Fay Nass, Artistic Director of the frank theatre company, for an interview about the company’s plans for their project called “Diaspora” (then just finished phase one of its process). That request led to a fascinating conversation that went much further than the project. Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, the project is taking on new form and content.
During the spring and summer of 2019, PTC Associate Veronique West and Dramaturgical Intern Kathy Feng followed a group of Chinese seniors through a season of planting, tending, and harvesting their community garden. PTC has released the audio podcast Roots and Seeds, created from interviews and found sound during the gardening season, in three versions: English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.
In the coming weeks, PTC will be amplifying some of the community leaders who are supporting our community’s essential needs. Whether you can share their story or contribute resources, we invite you to celebrate the resilience and solidarity of our friends and neighbours. For six years, PTC called Vancouver’s Chinatown…
This spring, PTC will be hiring a new dramaturg to join Kathleen and Heidi. It will be a part-time staff position based in Vancouver. Are you a dramaturg, engaged with community, and with skills for producing and planning? Watch this space in April for a full job description and application details.
Playwright/director Rzgar Hama, Artistic Director of Sky Theatre, is never idle. Over the last year, he put together a cohort of refugees to share their stories in a three-phase project whose first phase finished in January 2020. Dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty asked Rzgar to talk about the project just as he was ramping up for Phase Two.
As a precaution in light of rapidly developing measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 in our community, our office will be closed until further notice. PTC staff are working remotely and some of our programs and workshops will proceed virtually. We are sending much love and compassion to our community. We are compiling an ongoing list of resources to help you through this.
PTC, in partnership with the GVPTA (Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Association) asked María Escolán to reflect on her experience participating in Coyuntura 2020: An International Latinx Theatre Gathering. Coyuntura was sponsored by the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC) and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs (SFUW).
We are pleased to announce the participants in the Block P 2020.
Dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty interviews the curators of DBLSPK, a series of events responsible for raising some fascinating questions about language and meaning in theatre.
PTC and the Vancouver Fringe Festival are pleased to announce the winner of the 2020 Fringe New Play Prize.
During the last year, Japanese-Canadian multi-disciplinary theatre artist June Fukumura has been developing a new practice in dramaturgy, both at Banff Playwrights Lab and as the first ever MSG Emerging Dramaturg supported by Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre and PTC. Kathleen Flaherty sat down with June to ask her about this new(ish) arrow in her professional quiver.
Pritchard believes that the investigation of dramaturgy and curation is fundamental to the continued transformation of the theatre industry. This is a reprint. This article was first published by ArtsHub on Friday 15 February, 2019.
This year’s PTC WrightSpace residency (January 10-19, 2020) welcomes Catherine Joell MacKinnon to Vancouver to develop her bilingual (ASL-English) play, Inaudibility World.
After attending her first LMDA conference in 2019: “Crossing Borders, Pt.2”, Daniela Atiencia reflects on the role of the dramaturg in fostering positive social change.
We are pleased to announce that, once again, the number of playwrights submitting to Block A, PTC’s popular program for emerging writers, has been plentiful, so four sessions are being convened, two in the fall and two in winter.
Lili Robinson is the creator/playwright of Mx, the project that won our hearts and minds in the 2019 Fringe New Play Prize competition. As we prepare for the launch of this new work on September 6 and as we solicit entries for FNPP 2020, we asked Project Dramaturg Joanna Garfinkel to interview Lili about how she perceives the process from this point just before final rehearsals begin.Joanna Garfinkel
In October of 2018, Reneltta Arluk and Patti Flather took part in a research project facilitated by Nightswimming’s Pure Research wing. They were interested in discovering how languages, specifically Indigenous languages known to few people, could be part of theatrical presentations. They created and refined several live experiments to carry out over a few days. Kathleen Flaherty interviewed Reneltta and Patti about the project.
This piece, A Look into Theatre’s FutVRe by Carly B. Johnson, was originally published on HowlRound Theatre Commons (howlround.com/look-theatres-futvre), on April 18, 2019. Johnson explores the possibilities of burgeoning VR and AR technology to expand upon and enhance theatrical experiences.
PTC is convening our thirteenth annual 10-day residency, WrightSpace, in Vancouver, BC, in January of 2020. This year, we are interested in creating an opportunity for creative exchange with Deaf artists.
This essay, published 30 years ago in the Canadian journal Theatrum, authored by two dancer-choreographers and a dramaturg: Denise Fujiwara, Tama Soble, and DD Kugler, is a pioneering document, one of the first case studies describing the working processes of dance dramaturgy, around the time when this “new craft” was just emerging.
In our random occasional “What do dramaturgs do?” series, PTC Dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty talks about two of her more unusual company collaborations.
Heidi Taylor shares her experience as a learner and observer at SOUND OFF, Canada’s national festival dedicated to the Deaf performing arts, presented by Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre at the Chinook Festival in Edmonton, Alberta.
We asked WrightSpace 2018 Guest Dramaturg Jiv Parasram to write a piece about his experience in the program. This is Jiv’s thought experiment.
We are pleased to announce the participants in this year’s Block P (Producing for Theatre): Mairy Beam, Kagan Goh, Rebecca Walters and Ilana Zackon, join the producer of the Fringe New Play Prize 2019 winning project (Mx) Shanae Sodhi.
PTC and the Vancouver Fringe Festival are pleased to announce that Lili Robinson has won the Fringe New Play Prize with her work Mx.
Reflections on Deaf theatre in our country after attending The Awakening Deaf Theatre in Canada conference in November 2018.
In this reprint from Got Your Back. Heidi Malazdrewich talks about shifting to a more feminist process as a director, and creating a safe space for her actors
Can developing an autobiographical play be legitimate research? Tetsuro Shigematsu holds up his play “Empire of the Son” to the academic lens for consideration.
PTC is pleased to announce that Jess Amy Shead joins us as our Community Engaged Producing Intern from October 2018 – July 2019.
Where does our food come from? Who grows it? Who is nourished by it? Join playwright Pedro Chamale for words and music from his play-in-progress that brings temporary foreign farm workers centre stage – the unseen people who plant, tend, and harvest. Share food and stories in a family-friendly event that reveals the links in Canada’s food chain.
We believe in the creative impulses of our artists. Help PTC say, “Yes, let’s” to new Canadian plays by WrightSpace 2018 playwrights Barbara Adler, Tai Amy Grauman, Robert Hamilton and Yvonne Wallace. Our goal is to raise $3000 by November 15 to ensure these artists have cultural consultants, designers, actors and space to dream! Donate at CanadaHelps.org today.
In this piece by Katherine Swimm, reprinted from HowlRound, she discusses how working closely with the projection designer from the beginning of development of the play “Ripe Frenzy” resulted in a unique production with a deep connection between the design and the script.
This year’s PTC WrightSpace residency (Dec. 5 – 15, 2018) brings four writers together with dramaturgs, actors, designers, and language consultants to crack open four scripts through bespoke dramaturgical processes. Barbara Adler, Tai Amy Grauman, Robert Hamilton and Yvonne Wallace are exploring the content as well as the processes they…
PTC is pleased to welcome our longtime friend and colleague mia susan amir into a co-mentorship with Artistic & Executive Director Heidi Taylor. As PTC’s Dramaturgy Research Associate, mia will advise on inclusive process design for our upcoming WrightSpace residency, and bear witness to the residency in December. Heidi will support mia’s development of access protocols and visioning for future projects.
We are delighted to announce that, once again, the number of playwrights submitting to Block A – PTC’s popular program for emerging writers – has exceeded our expectations, so four sessions are being convened, two in the fall and two in winter. The fall 2018 cohort has six writers who…
In this video interview, Fringe New Play Prize winners Sara Vickruck and Anais West share their thoughts about the development of their slam poetry musical “Poly Queer Love Ballad”.
PTC is pleased to welcome Jiv Parasram as guest dramaturg for the 2018 WrightSpace residency. Each year we bring a new guest dramaturg into the fold to enrich the company’s dramaturgical perspectives and offer our writers the most interesting and dynamic theatrical collaborators possible. Jiv is no stranger to PTC-developed…
PTC is happy to announce the stellar group of participants in this year’s Block SAT.
Project Dramaturg Joanna Garfinkel and Fringe New Play Prize winners Sara Vickruck and Anaïs West share thoughts about the development of “Poly Queer Love Ballad” and the unique relationship between songwriting, slam poetry and playwriting.
A chat with Rzgar Hama about the premiere of the English language version of his play “Soldierland” (The Annex May 18-24, 2018).
Join PTC at the premiere of Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way, a new play and cultural encounter that gives voice to those who have lived within Canada’s long shadow of colonialism.
Veronique West reflects on the concepts of truth and fiction in her family history, her life and her art.
How deep can a fraud go? Tim Carlson – writer and host of “Victim Impact: The Fraudcast” – discusses the impetus behind this podcast series about one of the largest fraud schemes in Canadian history and how tunnelling ever deeper into the layers of the case altered his perceptions of victims, criminals and human nature.
We are pleased to announce the participants in this year’s Block P (Producing): Diana Bang, Kris Fleerackers, Matthew Horrigan, Ian Kent, Lenore Rowntree, Maria Zarrillo, and our Fringe New Play Prize winners, Anais West and Sara Vickruck.
We checked in with the playwrights involved in MSG Lab – VACT’s program that supports new theatrical work by emerging and mid-career Asian Canadian artists – to find out about their experience with their PTC dramaturg.
by Leanna Brodie Beijing, June 2017: Of all the possible barriers to researching a play about Arthur Miller in China, I didn’t think that one of the most pressing ones would be figuring out how to cross the street. Jovanni – my partner in this project, as in life –…
Playwright/actor/director/producer Pedro Chamale shares his experience of discovering more about himself and his Latinx identity at the El Encuentro del las America 2017 conference in Los Angeles, CA.
PTC and the Vancouver Fringe Festival are pleased to announce that the team comprised of Anais West and Sara Vickruck is the winner of the 2018 Fringe New Play Prize for “Poly Queer Love Ballad”. The Prize includes a free Mainstage spot at the 2018 Vancouver Fringe, the design and execution of a development process for the play with PTC’s Project Dramaturg Joanna Garfinkel, and a free spot in PTC’s how-to-produce-theatre seminar series, Block P.
Find out who is participating in the 2017-18 MSG Lab, VACT’s annual new play development program in association with PTC. Facilitating the creation and development of new theatrical work by emerging and mid-career Asian Canadian artists, this program is VACT’s commitment to the next generation of Asian Canadian theatre makers. The MSG Lab showcases stories from the Asian Canadian points of view, and develops new Asian Canadian work to a professional level for future production opportunities.
PTC’s Kathleen Flaherty was having one of many passionate and enlightening conversations with theatre maker (and PTC Associate 2010 -13) Lisa C. Ravensbergen when Lisa spoke briefly about asking a director whether she was to portray a character as white. Kathleen admits that the idea was so startling to her that, at first, she didn’t stop to inquire. Later, Lisa agreed to talk about what she meant and we have edited that conversation for sharing.
You are invited to follow Vancouver Moving Theatre and PTC in the next phase of development of the theatrical production (and cultural encounter) Weaving Reconciliation.There are three events taking place at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival (Oct. 25 – Nov. 5) in Vancouver as part of the process: Slahal Story and Demonstration; Trickster Talk and Play Reading: Weaving reconciliation.
We’re thrilled to bring Anjela Magpantay on board as Producing Intern for 2017-18.
Lindsay Lachance, Guest Dramaturg for WrightSpace 2017 (the recently renamed Colony) , introduces a discussion of her experience and understanding of Indigenous dramaturgies.
This year’s WrightSpace (Dec. 6-16, 2017) brings four writers together with dramaturgs, actors, designers, and cultural consultants to crack open four scripts through bespoke dramaturgical processes. Tania Carter, Joseph Dandurand, and Taran Kootenhayoo are all from the greater Vancouver area, while Frances Koncan will come in from Winnipeg. This year,…
This year, we are delighted to announce that the number of playwrights submitting to Block A, PTC’s popular program for emerging writers, has exceeded the capacity by 500% so four sessions are being convened, two in the fall and two in winter. Check out our cohorts and find out who is the recipient of The Virago Play Series scholarship.
Playwright Dave Deveau returned from the ASSITEJ conference in South Africa with fresh excitement about the power of theatre for young audiences. Kathleen talked to him about the conference and TYA in general. ASSITEJ is the acronym for the French name of the International Association of Theatre for Children and…
Setting Bones, winner of the Fringe New Play Prize 2017, premieres at the Vancouver Fringe Festival Sept. 9 -17, 2017.
The winners of the 2017 Fringe New Play Prize – lee williams boudakian, Kamee Abrahamian and Anoushka Ratnarajah – have been working with Associate Dramaturg mia amir on their play Setting Bones for the last seven months. Anoushka shares the challenges and deep explorations embedded in creating this far-reaching and personal work.
In Facing the Fuck-Ups (originally published Jan. 24, 2017 on SpiderWebShow, a knowledge commons by and for the theatre community), Debbie Patterson talks about her journey to fully incorporate her disability into her theatre work, including discussion of internalized ableism, common disability narratives in popular culture and, perhaps most importantly, how to fail.
The Fringe New Play Prize work-in-progress (Untitled) Boxes has undergone many transformations in the last few months, including a new title. Read about the playwrights’ progress.
Elaine Avila is just finishing her three years as a PTC Associate with a July workshop of her play Fado. This essay, which we consider a stellar example of the kind of dramaturgy playwrights engage in, was originally published as part of a blog salon called “Stages of Resistance”, curated by Caridad Svich for The Lark Theatre. The series welcomes reflections on themes related to making work for live performance in political and aesthetic resistance to forms and systems that oppress human rights and censor or severely limit freedom of expression.
Originally published on Ruby Slippers’ Flying Monkey blog, here Heidi Taylor talks about her own experience with disability and the broader issues of inclusion in theatre.
Playwright/director/teacher David Geary responded to a query in the LMDA digest about post performance feedback sessions, whether they are useful and how they should be conducted.
Block A winter session mentor Joanna Garfinkel is experimenting with bringing this cohort of writers into PTC’s Test Kitchen for physically-based work to help with script writing. We asked her to share her thoughts about this unique process.
Both Melanie Yeats and Kathleen Flaherty attended the PuSh Festival workshop Page to Stage: The Craft of Adaptation with Vincent Murphy in late January 2017. Murphy offers what he has learned and taught about adaptation-specific strategies for theme, dialogue, character, imagery, storyline, and action. Belinda Bruce and Kathleen Flaherty asked Melanie to share her thoughts on the workshop.
We are pleased to announce the participants in this year’s Block P (Producing): lee williams boudakian, Moses Clyde Caliboso, Rachael Goddard-Rebstein, Peg Keenleyside, Jessica Leung, Ariel Martz-Oberlander and Anoushka Ratnarajah. Over the next six weeks these five artists will be learning the ins and outs of indie producing with UpintheAir Theatre’s Daniel Martin and Dave Mott. Read their bios…
Sometimes we neglect to honour and celebrate our theatre mentors and elders while they are among us. We feel this keenly at the passing of the indefatigable, the inspiring, the irreplaceable Joy Coghill. Kathleen had some enviable opportunities to collaborate with Joy, so we asked her to do put some of her feelings into words.
PTC is pleased to announce that we have chosen five playwrights as PTC Associates 2017 – 20. We will work on their new plays over the course of the next three years.
PTC’s Dramaturgy & Programming Intern, Davey Calderon, is often in the studio these days developing a new theatrical creation. We know how eclectic and interesting his training and influences are, and we are intensely curious about the sounds coming from the Test Kitchen, so Kathleen asked him to share something about the work and his unique process with us.
PTC and the Vancouver Fringe Festival are pleased to announce that the team comprised of lee williams boudakian, Anoushka Ratnarajah and Kamee Abrahamian is the winner of the 2017 Fringe New Play Prize for (Untitled) Boxes. The Prize includes a free Mainstage spot at the 2017 Vancouver Fringe, the design and execution of a development process for the play with PTC’s Associate Dramaturg mia amir and production mentoring from PTC.
Heidi Taylor reveals the inner workings of PTC’s Company Collaborations – how projects are chosen and what happens behind the curtain.
Join us for a conversation of how theatre contributes to the fabric of Vancouver’s Chinatown – where food and language intersect on Coast Salish territory. Come at 6:30pm for the DUMPLING CHALLENGE! Stay for readings in English and Cantonese from Jovanni Sy’s play A Taste of Empire/食盡天下, translated into Cantonese by Derek Chan. With Bob Sung, Jovanni Sy, Derek Chan and Andrea Yu.
Thoughts about working with the Cantonese language after a decade in self-exile. In part two of this two-part series, Derek Chan, co-artistic director of rice and beans theatre, reflects on the experience of translating Jovanni Sy’s hit play A Taste of Empire from English to his first language, Cantonese.
This year’s Writers’ Colony (Dec. 6-16, 2016) brings four writers together with dramaturgs, actors, designers, and cultural consultants to crack open four scripts through bespoke dramaturgical processes. Peter Anderson (Vancouver), Sunny Drake (Toronto), Debbie Patterson (Winnipeg), and José Teodoro (Toronto) will spend ten days together to move their work to the next stage.
Derek Chan shares his thoughts on rekindling his relationship with the Cantonese language through translation of Jovanni Sy’s play “Taste of Empire” from English to Cantonese.
Announcing the participants in the 2016-17 Block A, PTC’s popular program for emerging writers.
This is the second of a series of notes by Deneh’Cho Thompson on creating and developing his Fringe play. Deneh won the Fringe New Play Prize based on a statement of intention and some writing on a piece called “The Girl Who was Raised by Wolverine”.
An in-depth look at PTC’s process for creating an accessible online presence.
Tinkers is an adaptation of the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Paul Harding. This new transcendentalist work features an intimate and dazzling relationship with the natural world, woven into a story of family karma.
June 21-25, 2016 at the Firehall Arts Centre
O’wet/Lost Lagoon is a solo performance about reclamation and change that weaves real-life stories with the visceral experience of a spiritual canoe journey. Written and performed by Quelemia Sparrow, it grapples with the identity of a mixed-race aboriginal woman in a present-day, colonized world.
How does Jordan Hall engage with comic forms in her new play “How to Survive an Apocalypse”? Embedded critic Kelsey Blair investigates.
How to Survive an Apocalypse by Jordan Hall is the winner of the 2016 Flying Start Program, a collaboration between PTC, Touchstone Theatre and the Firehall Arts Centre. The 18-month development process for a new play culminates in a first production at a PACT theatre. The play opens June 2…
This is the first of a series of notes by Deneh’Cho Thompson on creating and developing his Fringe play. Deneh won the Fringe New Play Prize based on a statement of intention and some writing on a piece called The Girl Who was Raised by Wolverine. It was apparent that…
In this reprint from Howlround, PTC Associate Elaine Avila talks about her path to playwriting, her Azorean-Portuguese roots and telling stories missing from the stage. Playwright Elaine Avila’s grandfather, João Henrique Avila, was one of the first photographers in his village Ribeiras, Pico, in the Azores, Portugal. He came to…
“…an innovative, sensual feast. ” –Colin Thomas, Georgia Straight PTC is excited to support the remount of This Stays in the Room. The play animates the PTC Test Kitchen for its rehearsal period, and dramaturg Heidi Taylor will again be part of the creation team. Second productions are a valuable and…
In July, AED Heidi Taylor headed to the Sunshine Coast for a collaboration with Kendra Fanconi and The Only Animal team on a site-specific workshop of Tinkers. The show is an adaptation of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning novel Tinkers by Paul Harding. This new transcendentalist’s work features an intimate…
Dave Deveau sent in this photo of what his new play, Dead Peoples’ Things, looks like the Friday afternoon before the workshop on Monday. Part of the development process can be spreading the pages out on the floor and moving them around. Or cutting pages into bits and moving the bits…
We continue our series about this unique version of the Writers’ Colony, featuring brief interviews with the participating artists. PTC is convening its ninth annual Writers’ Colony in Vancouver, December 2-12, 2015 with playwrights Janet Hinton, Heidi Janz and Adam Warren. Also collaborating on Colony 2015 as dramaturg/directors are the…
November 14, 2015: Shawn Macdonald invited me to speak to participants in LEAP, which he runs with Christine Quintana at Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre. It’s a training unit for playwrights ages 15–23, culminating in public readings in April–May. [I draw a straight chalk line across the floor between the students…
Sometimes it happens that a new year begins with new projects at PTC. Dramaturg Kathleen Flaherty burbles through the office about two of her fresh collaborations. Unsolicited, she declaims quotes from obscure sources without context, which prompted us to ask for more detail about the sometimes confounding origins of her newest theatrical musings.