Theatre is alive. An ever-evolving dialogue with life and with the world. PTC is where that conversation starts.

PTC is a dramaturgically-focused theatre company that finds, nurtures, and advances the Canadian playwright, supporting new plays from creation to performance. We collaborate on new work with emerging and established theatre artists. Our focus is dramaturgy, development, playmaking from A to Z. Through carefully curated programs and deep conversations with artists, we help them transform their practice and ideas. New and necessary stories take shape. Fresh ways of working, thinking and creating emerge. We foster a culture of inclusivity and aim to make PTC accessible to all artists of passion and vision.

Our story

Founded as the New Play Centre in 1970 by Sheila Neville and Douglas Bankson, PTC initially began as a script critique service with a mandate to “encourage and develop dramatic writing in British Columbia”. With the hiring of its first managing and artistic director, Pamela Hawthorn, in 1972, the mandate was broadened and we became an active producing theatre company dedicated to the production and presentation of new works. PTC marks its anniversary from its date of incorporation in March 1973.

Operating as The New Play Centre through the 1980s, the company produced full-length plays and the popular New Play Festival. More Vancouver companies – like Touchstone Theatre – were bringing new Canadian work to the stage, demonstrating the viability of Canadian playwriting.

In 1995, under the direction of Artistic Director Kim Selody, The New Play Centre merged with The Betty Lambert Society to become Playwrights Theatre Centre and in 1999, under the leadership of Chapelle Jaffe, PTC acquired offices and a studio theatre on Vancouver’s Granville Island.

From 2002-12, during Martin Kinch’s tenure, PTC curated programs focused on the playwright, collaborating with other theatre makers.

In 2012, Heidi Taylor became the Artistic and Executive Director of PTC and in 2013, the company moved to Chinatown where we had a studio, meeting space and a creative hub shared with Pi Theatre and our Hub inhabitants.  In 2019, we moved to Progress Lab 1422, where we share a large studio and meeting space with a community of theatre and dance companies including Electric Company Theatre, Rumble Theatre, Neworld Theatre, Company 605, Theatre Conspiracy, Tara Cheyenne Performance and rice and beans theatre.

PTC continues to be a locus for emerging and established artists to reimagine theatre.