Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Artistic Director Richard Rose is thrilled to announce Ellie Moon as the inaugural winner of the Bulmash-Siegel New Play Development Award, and Kat Sandler as Canada Council Playwright-in-Residence.
The 2017/18 Bulmash-Siegel New Play Development Award has been awarded to playwright, actor, and producer Ellie Moon. The Bulmash-Siegel Fund has been supporting performing arts in Toronto for several years, understanding that a vibrant arts environment fosters a healthy and exciting city. Laurence Siegel and Judy Siegel (Bulmash) have created this new award at Tarragon to support emerging artists presenting contemporary Canadian work. This award provides a unique opportunity for mentorship, pairing Ellie with Jason Sherman, Tarragon’s Bill Glassco Playwright-in-Residence.
Upon accepting the award, Ellie offered the following remarks: "I feel enormously privileged to receive the financial support of this award - which means that I can devote myself more fully to playwriting. The award also represents for me important moral support at this early stage of my writing career.”
“Ellie Moon, for such a new member of our theatre and playwriting community, has already made her mark with her play Asking for It.” says Richard Rose. “Upon reading her next effort for Tarragon Playwrights Unit, I knew she was a writer to watch, and now a writer we can encourage with fiscal support, dramaturgical input and a home. I am chuffed that she wants to make Tarragon her artistic residence and her next play is once again controversial and contemporary - truly a play for our times.”
Kat Sandler has received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts to support of a playwright residency at Tarragon. The theatre will support Kat through its various play development programs, which include dramaturgy, readings and workshops as well as longer term Workspaces.
“What’s exciting about Kat Sandlers’ writing is she is taking enjoyable populist forms and using them to explore larger and more intricate questions, cultural ideas and values.” says Richard Rose. “Kat demonstrates creative and courageous writing, and perhaps more importantly, she is broadening and deepening her art both by looking to explore form and to mine content. The residency offers her a significant opportunity for learning and artistic growth. And the Tarragon gets another Kat Sandler play or two!”
Artist Biographies
Ellie Moon recently closed the sold-out run of her debut as playwright. Asking For It, a documentary play examining consent, which opened the 17-18 season at Crow's Theatre (with support from Nightwood Theatre and Necessary Angel Theatre Company), was developed through Crow's docu-unit, and with support from the NAC, and was presented in workshop by Why Not Theatre and Crow's Theatre in 2016. Ellie is an actor who has appeared onstage with Soulpepper in Toronto, as well as The Arts Club and Tristan Bates Theatres in London's West End and London's Bush Theatre as well as in film, television and BBC Radio Drama. Ellie founded The Secret Shakespeare Series in 2016, a charitable and theatrical initiative, and continues to produce the series.
Kat Sandler is a writer, director and the Artistic Director of Theatre Brouhaha, where she has directed twelve of her original plays in the last six years, including Toronto Best of Fringe hits Bright Lights, Punch Up and Help Yourself (winner of the New Play Contest), Delicacy (Summerworks Spotlight Award), and Liver, Cockfight and Retreat (Storefront Theatre). Other directing credits include Big Plans, 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Cabaret, and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia. She was a member of the 2014 Tarragon Playwrights Unit, where she developed, Mustard, which won the 2015 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (General Division). She was the 2015 recipient of NOW Magazine’s Audience Choice Award for Best Director and Best Playwright. Kat is a graduate of the Queen's University Drama Program.
ABOUT TARRAGON THEATRE
Tarragon Theatre is Canada’s home for groundbreaking contemporary playwriting. For over 46 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. Tarragon assists 30+ emerging and established playwrights each year through residencies, grants, dramaturgical support, and training programs. Patrons of all ages attend lectures, workshops, talkback weeks, play readings, and other events designed to engage audiences with new work. 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. Richard Rose has been the Artistic Director since 2002. For more information visit www.tarragontheatre.com.
Twitter: @tarragontheatre
Facebook: /TarragonTheatre
Photo: Ellie Moon and Kat Sandler.
2017-11-23
Toronto: Tarragon Theatre announces two new Playwright-in-Residencies