Stage Door News
Stage Door News
The Project
The Playwright Project Toronto is currently accepting submissions from individual directors, companies and collectives to participate in this year’s project celebrating Toronto theatre legend, Robertson Davies.
Four plays have been selected and we are accepting proposals based on those four scripts. We are more than open to hearing proposals of adaptations, original works or productions of plays not on the list that fit with the Project’s aim of presenting a diverse cross section of Davies work.
The Project is returning to a touring format for 2015. Plays will be presented in four different Toronto neighbourhoods, rotating each night through the course of two weeks. To that end, productions should be scaled to fit into each venue, using the same staging and seating arrangement as the rest of the Project.
As our goal with The Playwright Project is to present the Toronto theatre community in all its diverse forms, we strongly encourage submissions from artists across the spectrum of age, race, gender, orientation and ability to present their ideas for approaching this iconic writer’s challenging work and shaping this year’s Project.
The Shows
The scripts selected for this year’s Playwright Project are taken from Davies’ large catalogue of one act plays. They are the DNA of all Canadian family drama from Leaving Home to Kim’s Convenience. They highlight Davies sparkling wit and attention to character and detail. They also highlight some ideas of gender, race and cultural appropriation from a different era. They are challenging works that need to be approached with clear eyes and awareness. They are wonderful and shocking.
Overlaid: A windfall of money causes a small town family to question their motives and their ideas of goodness.
Hope Deferred: In the early hours of Canada, the motives of art and nations are questioned.
The Voice of the People: In the days before social media, small town gossip and misplaced outrage make fixing an oven difficult.
Eros at Breakfast: The inner functions of a university student debate the best uses of their host’s body and affections.
The Business
What do I get?
The Project will provide: performance rights to all scripts, performance venues, all front of house and box office services, vehicles for transportation between venues, basic sound and light set ups in each space.
Box office returns for the entire festival are split evenly between the four participating companies. It’s the fairest way.
What am I responsible for?
Companies are responsible for: assembling your team (if you need help finding people to flesh out your ideas, we can play matchmaker and help you find the right person), your own rehearsal space, the proper permission from your union or association to participate (we operate under the CAEA Festival Policy and can help you sort through that paper work if necessary), any specific set/costume/prop your show requires.
Venues are small and non-traditional, keep that in mind. All venues will be arranged “in the round” to allow for maximum playing space and to get as many audience members as possible into some of Toronto’s nooks and crannies. Keeping your focus on script and acting will set you up for the most success possible.
Proposals
Now that you’ve read all that, what should you do? Get to a library and read the plays. Seriously. Once you’ve found one or two or three or four you’ve fallen in love with, send a short, two or three paragraph pitch to info@playwrightproject.com.
Let us know who you are, some of the people you might like to work with and why you want to do one of these plays. Don’t have a whole creative team lined up? No problem. Don’t have a company? No problem. We’re not looking for the artists we know, we’re looking for the artists we want to know. Your ideas are what we want to hear, we can line up the people later.
Once the submission deadline hits, a short list of participants will be made and meet ups with the Project Curator will be arranged.
Seriously, read the plays first.
Dates
Submission Deadline: FEBRUARY 2, 2015
Meetings with selected participants will begin shortly after the submission deadline so that a full line up of participants can be announced April 1, 2015.
Photo: Robertson Davies.
2014-12-17
Toronto: 2015 Playwright Project Toronto – Robertson Davies - call for submissions