Playwrights Theatre Centre

Call for Submissions to Block A

PTC is calling for submissions for our most popular program for emerging artists: Block A. Block A is for artists who write for all kinds of performance. There will be two cohorts, in fall 2018 and winter 2019. Apply now! Deadline: July 30, 2018.

Translating Soldierland: A Chat with Rzgar Hama

A chat with Rzgar Hama about the premiere of the English language version of his play “Soldierland” (The Annex May 18-24, 2018).

Weaving Reconciliation: Our Way

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.

PTC’s Studio Workshop Series

Set yourself up for a successful summer. These workshops will help hone your skills and move you deeper into your process. Whether you are an actor, producer, playwright, or all three, there’s a Studio workshop that will inspire you, engage you, and give you some practical skills to move your…

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Submissions for BLOCK SAT

Playwrights Theatre Centre and Project SAT (South Asian Theatre) are calling for submissions from potential participants in a new series of dramaturgical discussions focused on exploring the heritage and potential of South Asian Theatre in the lower mainland, BC.

Relation: Or, My Family’s True Lies

Veronique West reflects on the concepts of truth and fiction in her family history, her life and her art.

SECRET LOCATION REVEALED for Unscripted: Where the Devil Can’t Go: May 3, 2018

SECRET LOCATION…. In the ’80s in Poland under Martial Law, people gathered in secret in basements and school gyms, gaining entrance with a bottle of vodka and a password whispered to the janitor. To join us for Veronique West’s “Unscripted: Where the Devil Can’t Go”, you won’t need to bring vodka, just meet us at Progress Lab 1422 (1422 William St.) this Thursday, May 3. The password is “DEVIL”.

Fashioning a Fraudcast

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.

Announcing the Block P 2018 participants

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.

Call for Applications: Production Coordinator, Unscripted

PTC seeks a Production Coordinator for a public event in May 2018 called Unscripted.

MSG Lab Readings

Join us for readings of new works by MSG Lab playwrights Gary Mok, Yumi Ogawa and Sangeeta Wylie. PTC Test Kitchen Feb. 22-24, 2018. FREE.

MSG: Distance Dramaturgy/ You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know/ Trust Where You Are

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.

Beyond the Barriers

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 –…

UNSCRIPTED: SALESMAN IN CHINA

PTC Presents Unscripted: Salesman in China, a border-crossing time-travelling community event. Performances, talks, food and images bring Beijing, 1983 and Vancouver, 2018 into relationship through Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. How do we translate language and cultural differences? How do we bridge the gap between generations? PTC Associates Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy welcome you into the world of their new play.

Save the Date | UNSCRIPTED: Salesman in China

For two months in 1983, two of the world’s great artists struggled to bridge the abyss between two of the world’s great cultures. UNSCRIPTED: Salesman in China is a border-crossing time-travelling community event that unearths their incredible story.

Call for Submissions to Block P

Apply to participate in Block P, our six-session workshop on Producing for Theatre. Block P takes place on six Tuesdays, beginning February 20, 2018 and ending in April, and will be led by Daniel Martin and Dave Mott of Upintheair Theatre, and guests.

Encontrándome: Meeting Myself

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.

Announcing the 2018 Fringe New Play Prize Winner

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.

Announcing the next MSG Lab

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.

AGM: December 4, 2017

Join PTC and rice & beans for our AGM and performances from our Company Collaboration: Play Dates.

Refreshments and a window into some fresh new work.

Doors at 6:30
Meeting at 7 pm, followed by refreshment break
8 pm reading

Acting White

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.

Weaving Reconciliation at Heart of the City Festival

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.

PTC welcomes Anjela Magpantay

We’re thrilled to bring Anjela Magpantay on board as Producing Intern for 2017-18.

Announcing our WrightSpace Participants for 2017

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,…

Indigenous Dramaturgies

Lindsay Lachance, Guest Dramaturg for WrightSpace 2017 (the recently renamed Colony) , introduces a discussion of her experience and understanding of Indigenous dramaturgies.

Announcing our Block A Participants 2017

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.

Dave Deveau talks TYA on an international scale

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 at the Vancouver Fringe

Setting Bones, winner of the Fringe New Play Prize 2017, premieres at the Vancouver Fringe Festival Sept. 9 -17, 2017.

Call for Submissions: Fringe New Play Prize

The Vancouver Fringe Festival and Playwrights Theatre Centre are calling for applications for the sixth year of the Fringe New Play Prize. Through the Fringe New Play Prize, PTC and the Vancouver Fringe offer BC artists a leg up in the process of creating and producing a new play. BC…

Virago Play Series offers bursary for Block A

The Virago Play Series is offering a bursary to support a female or femme identified playwright who is accepted to one of PTC’s two cohorts for Block A in the coming season.

Setting Bones: a story from the silences

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.

Facing the Fuck-Ups

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.

Call for Submissions: The PTC Writers’ Colony

PTC is convening our eleventh annual Writers’ Colony in Vancouver, BC, December 6 – 16, 2017. Playwrights from across Canada are invited to make submissions to be part of it.

Call for Submissions: Block A

We are calling for submissions for our most popular program for emerging artists: Block A. We offer Fall and Winter cohorts with different mentors. Check it out!

Fringe New Play Prize: Setting Bones

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.

Resistência: 3 Fados

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.

Stumbling Towards Inclusion

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.

Feedback: The Right of Reply

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.

Physical theatre training for script writing

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.

Join our Board

Playwrights Theatre Centre (PTC) currently has four volunteer positions available among its diverse and vibrant board of directors. We are seeking board members with an interest in how new Canadian plays are made, and a commitment to growing their own leadership skills.

Call for Submissions for Block N

Are you a writer interested in working collaboratively? Block N is a weekend intensive in physical creation for writers led by New(to)Town Collective, March 18 & 19, at PTC. Emerging or experienced, bring your curiosity and a willingness to play.

PTC Welcomes Block P Participants 2017

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…

Melanie Yeats on Page to Stage: The Craft of Adaptation with Vincent Murphy

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.

Joy Coghill: Forever Present

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.

Announcing the PTC Associates 2017-20

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.

Davey Calderon creates a new work

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.

Happy Holidays!

PTC Holiday Hours:

Please note that PTC will be closed for the holidays on December 22, 2016 and will reopen on January 3, 2017.

Call for Submissions for Block P 2017

DEADLINE EXTENDED to Tuesday, January 24, 2017.
PTC is calling for submissions for six sessions on Producing for Theatre called Block P 2017. UpintheAir Theatre’s Daniel Martin and Dave Mott offer a crash course in producing. Indie production is how many theatre makers get started – in the Fringe, in another festival, maybe just striking out on their own. The six-session Block P offers practical skills, meant to apply to a project you have in the works.

Fringe New Play Prize 2017 Winner

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.

Come to our AGM: Nov. 28

Joint AGM with Itsazoo Productions. Join us at our AGM, an evening of celebration and free Associate-ing. The end of 2016 marks the final days of our three-year collaboration with PTC Associates Carmen Aguirre, Hiro Kanagawa, Quelemia Sparrow, Adrienne Wong, Dave Deveau and Elaine Avila.

PTC Program insider: Company Collaborations

Heidi Taylor reveals the inner workings of PTC’s Company Collaborations – how projects are chosen and what happens behind the curtain.

Get your theatre content on Howlround TV

Want to be part of an international performance commons? Meet Ramona Ostrowski (Associate Producer) and Jamie Ghalon (Co-founder & Senior Creative Producer) of HowlRound TV while they are in Vancouver to introduce their platform and program content for the online theatre portal.

Sharing Theatre, Sharing Culture

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.

A Taste of Translation, Pt. II

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.

PTC announces Writers’ Colony participants

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.

Call for Submissions to PTC Associates

PTC is seeking four exceptional playwrights to join the company for three years, to develop a central project – and their practice – with PTC dramaturgs. Our past Associates have developed plays, process, and a community of theatre makers.

A Taste of Translation, Pt. I

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.

Two new Block A cohorts

Announcing the participants in the 2016-17 Block A, PTC’s popular program for emerging writers.

Fear and art: Dispatches from Deneh’Cho Thompson on creating his Fringe play

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”.

A new stage: building an accessible website

An in-depth look at PTC’s process for creating an accessible online presence.

Call for submissions: The PTC Writers’ Colony

ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS UNTIL: August 7, 2016.

PTC is convening our tenth annual Writers’ Colony in Vancouver, BC, December 6-16, 2016. Playwrights from across Canada are invited to make submissions to be part of it.

Tinkers

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.

O’wet/ Lost Lagoon

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.

Call for Submissions for Block A

Playwrights Theatre Centre (PTC) is calling for submissions for our most popular program for emerging artists: Block A. Block A is for playwrights who have written in class or in their kitchens, maybe had a short piece produced. And for theatre artists who have thought of themselves primarily as actors…

Call for Submissions: Fringe New Play Prize

The Vancouver Fringe Festival and Playwrights Theatre Centre are calling for applications for the fifth year of the Fringe New Play Prize.

Embedded Critic: Investigating Comedy in How to Survive an Apocalypse

How does Jordan Hall engage with comic forms in her new play “How to Survive an Apocalypse”? Embedded critic Kelsey Blair investigates.

Embedded Critic: How to Survive an Apocalypse

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…

The Luso Bat Signal: An Interview with Elusive Portuguese Playwright Elaine Avila

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…

Dispatches from Deneh’Cho Thompson on creating his Fringe play

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…

A Play in Process

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…

In The Realm of “What Does A Dramaturg Do?”: Puzzling Beginnings

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.

Leanna Brodie Addresses Young Playwrights

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…

Call for Submissions for Block P 2016 Extended

PTC is calling for submissions for six sessions on Producing for Theatre called Block P 2016. Block P will take place on six Tuesdays, beginning February 9 and ending in April, and will be led by Daniel Martin and Dave Mott of Upintheair Theatre.  Sessions will encompass producing from primarily…

Decoder 2017 Workshop

Theatre and new technologies with Mallory Catlett February 1, 2016, 6 – 10pm PTC Test Kitchen (#202 – 739 Gore Ave., Vancouver) Register via the PuSh Festival website AED Heidi Taylor had a chance to see a workshop production of Decoder 2017 in New York in June, and is excited…

Colony Participants Part II: Why Here, Why Now?

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…

Tinkering with Tinkers

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…

Remount of This Stays in the Room

“…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…