Stage Door News
Stage Door News
October 13, 2011… The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s fourth annual Playwrights Retreat is being held from October 3 to 23, under the supervision of Bob White, Stratford’s Consulting Director of New Plays. The playwrights selected are a diverse group of Canadian writers with various levels of experience. They are: Catherine Banks, Michel Marc Bouchard, Sean Dixon, Linda Gaboriau, Hiro Kanagawa, Colleen Murphy, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Eugene Stickland and Kenneth T. Williams.
“I am thrilled to host such talented writers in a program that expands the opportunities Stratford offers Canadian playwrights,” says Artistic Director Des McAnuff. “The Retreat offers writers the opportunity to write away from the distractions of home and meet fellow playwrights from across Canada.”
“The Playwrights Retreat and residencies have proven to be important additions to the activities of our New Play Department,” says General Director Antoni Cimolino. “Next season we will begin to see work on our stages that was, in part, developed during these residencies. But we also benefit in a more intangible way by having these playwrights here, sharing ideas and inspiration with the members of our artistic company.”
The Retreat was set up to enhance Stratford’s New Play Program in 2008 by Festival Dramaturge Robert Blacker. Since then, 52 Canadian playwrights have participated in either the Retreat or in individual writing residencies, with Andrew Moodie completing the Festival’s most recent residency in September. Two projects from the Festival’s upcoming 2012 season came out of these residencies, Daniel MacIvor’s play, The Best Brothers, and the Alon Nashman/Paul Thompson collaboration, Hirsch.
Participants in the three-week Retreat are given a stipend and are provided with housing and transportation to and from Stratford, as well as tickets to Stratford productions. They have an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with key members of the Festival’s artistic and administrative teams over communal dinners in the Festival’s lounge.
2011 PLAYWRIGHTS RETREAT BIOGRAPHIES
Catherine Banks (Sambro, N.S.)
Catherine Banks’s work has been described as poetic, darkly humorous, courageous and beautifully theatrical; her characters as Atlantic Gothic. Her work has earned her national acclaim, including the 2008 Governor General’s Literary Award for her play BoneCage.
Michel Marc Bouchard (Montreal)
Born in Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, Quebec, Bouchard made his professional playwriting debut in 1983 and since then has written some 25 plays. He has received the Prix Journal de Montréal, the Prix du Cercle des critiques de l’Outaouais, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, the Chalmers Award for Outstanding New Play and nine Jesse Richardson Awards. His best-known work is the play Les feluettes, which was produced as the movie Lilies.
Sean Dixon (Toronto)
Sean Dixon is a playwright, novelist and actor. His plays have been produced in Canada, the U.S., Australia and the U.K., and three have been collected in AWOL: Three Plays for Theatre SKAM. Mr. Dixon’s first novel was The Girls Who Saw Everything (The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal in the U.S. and the U.K.), named one of the Best Books of 2007 by Quill & Quire.
Linda Gaboriau – translator (Montreal)
Linda Gaboriau is a Montreal-based dramaturge and literary translator. She has won awards for her translations of more than 80 plays and novels by Quebec writers, including many of the Quebec plays best known to English Canadian audiences. Her translation of Michel Tremblay’s For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again was seen at Stratford in 2010.
Hiro Kanagawa (Vancouver)
Born in Sapporo, Japan, Mr. Kanagawa is a Vancouver-based writer and actor. His first full-length play, Slants, which he wrote and directed for his MFA, placed third in the 1997 Herman Voaden National Playwriting Competition. He is a frequent collaborator with many of Vancouver’s most innovative small companies and has also written for such television series as DaVinci’s Inquest and Intelligence.
Colleen Murphy (Toronto)
Born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, and raised in Northern Ontario, Colleen Murphy is an internationally touted playwright and filmmaker. Her play The December Man (L’homme de décembre), about the Montreal Massacre, won the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard (Toronto)
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard is a wordsmith working in hip hop, spoken word, theatre and interdisciplinary creation. Her play Gas Girls has just been nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award and won the 2010 Dora Award for Outstanding New Play. She is the General Manager for Native Earth Performing Arts and Artistic Director of New Harlem Productions.
Eugene Stickland (Calgary)
Born in Regina and currently residing in Calgary, Eugene Stickland has been an important figure in Western Canada’s theatre scene for the past 20 years. His plays are characterized by black humour and an absurdist philosophy, often considering the farcical conundrums of dysfunctional families, failed relationships, and endgame scenarios, and satirize the materialist, corporate culture of Alberta. His most recent play, Queen Lear, has been touring Turkey for the past year.
Kenneth T. Williams (Saskatoon)
Kenneth T. Williams is an award-winning Cree playwright and journalist from the George Gordon First Nation. His plays Café Daughter, Gordon Winter, Thunderstick, Bannock Republic, Suicide Notes and Three Little Birds have been professionally produced across Canada.
The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s 2011 season runs until November 6, featuring The Merry Wives of Windsor, Camelot, Twelfth Night, The Misanthrope, The Grapes of Wrath, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Homecoming
2011-10-13
Stratford: Fourth annual Playwrights Retreat underway in Stratford