Stage Door News
Stage Door News
TORONTO (Feb 16, 2016) - Tarragon Theatre is pleased to announce that the Urjo Kareda Residency Grant, with a value of $15,000, funded by The Youssef-Warren Foundation has been awarded to Toronto Director/Writer Philip McKee.
The Urjo Kareda Residency Grant supports the training and artistic residency of an exceptional emerging theatre artist each season at Tarragon Theatre. The successful applicant spends twenty weeks at Tarragon Theatre pursuing her/his own training and artistic goals by working in collaboration with professional artists in his/her chosen field(s) of interest.
Beginning in August 2016, Philip will spend twenty weeks at the Tarragon continuing his development as a theatre-maker and director.
Upon accepting the residency, Philip offered the following remarks:
“I am honoured and excited to be a part of the Tarragon community. I have proposed a project that will combine my interest in mental health and my experience as a theatre director. The intention is to provide young people with an opportunity for creative expression, explore the theatre’s role in overcoming stigma associated with mental illness, and challenge my understanding of what it means to be an artistic leader. I am hoping there will be a public component to our work and will look forward to being able to share some of our experience.”
Philip McKee is a Toronto based director and writer. He collaborates with other artists to create original performance work that is subversive, intimate and vital. Subjects include war; the psychodrama of kinship; aging and senescence; capitalism and desire; privilege and structures of inequality. Work in the theatre includes: Bloody Family (The Theatre Centre), LEAR (World Stage, Harbourfront Centre/Magnetic North), Don’t Try New Things (Flowchart Dance Series), Child Psychologist (SummerWorks Performance Festival), King Doubt (SummerWorks Performance Festival), Founders Day Party (Suburban Beast), Old Hag (Tanztage/Sophiensaele), Brothers (SummerWorks Performance Festival), Foster Child Play (SummerWorks Performance Festival), La Voix Humaine (Monument National). Philip frequently Co-directs with Rose Plotek.
Other collaborators are Clare Coulter, Tanja Jacobs, Ishan Davé, Liz Peterson, Amy Nostbakken, Norah Sadava, James Bunton, Holger Schoorl, Amy Chartrand, Kate Whitehead, Jordan Tannahill, Alicia Grant, Jeremy James, and Alex Napier. Philip is a graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada, where he is now an instructor for their Acting and Directing Programs. Philip is a member of the Playwrights Unit at Tarragon Theatre, and is the 15.16 Canadian Stage RBC Emerging Artist Program: Director Development Residency participant.
Upcoming projects include The Pryce Academy – an experimental musical set in a boys’ private school, which has its first public reading May 2016 at Tarragon; and short film Piano Lessons – an adaptation of a short story by Alice Munro, starring Nancy Beatty and David Storch, shooting on location in Peterborough June 2016. [philipmckee.org]
Tarragon congratulates Phil on the Urjo Kareda Residency Grant and acknowledges the generosity of The Youssef-Warren Foundation which has made this residency possible.
ABOUT TARRAGON THEATRE: Tarragon Theatre is one of Canada’s most important arts institutions. For 45 years, Tarragon Theatre has created, developed and produced new plays by home-grown artists as well as significant works from the world stage, vitally contributing to the important legacy of a Canadian culture. Since its founding, over 190 works have premiered at Tarragon and over 500 scripts have been created and workshopped, receiving 34 nominations and 11 wins for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Tarragon received the 2012 Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in recognition of producing and developing leading edge and thought-provoking Canadian Theatre, both nationally and on the world stage. Richard Rose has been the Artistic Director since 2002. www.tarragontheatre.com
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Photo: Philip McKee.
2016-02-16
Toronto: Tarragon Theatre awards $15,000 Urjo Kareda Residency Grant to Philip McKee