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Playwrights’ Workshop
Montréal and The National Theatre School of
Canada present
The Precipice Radio Project
A series of radio dramas produced by
the CBC for Radio One’s Q
December 24, 27, 28, 31, 2007 and January 1, 2008
This holiday season all of Canada will
be able to tune in to hear The Precipice
Radio Project, a series of five 10-minute
radio dramas performed by the National Theatre School’s
graduating actors and written by both emerging and
established playwrights. Centering on the theme of
Precipice, the radio project was initiated
and coordinated by Playwrights’ Workshop
Montréal, in conjunction with CBC
Radio and the National Theatre School
of Canada. Taking the lead as dramaturgs
and directors were former PWM Artistic Director Paula
Danckert (former PWM Artistic Director and
currently Company Dramaturg and Associate Artist for
the NAC) and Stephen Lawson (actor,
director, and AD of the experimental company 2boys.TV),
working in close collaboration with CBC Vancouver
radio producer Kathleen Flaherty
and the NTS’s Artistic Director of the English
section, Sherry Bie.
The Radio Project will be broadcast
on December 24, 27, 28, 31 and January 1 on CBC Radio
One’s national arts program Q (http://www.cbc.ca/q/),
hosted by Jian Ghomeshi.
Five playwrights with unique backgrounds,
experiences, and perspectives were selected to write
original ten-minute radio dramas based around the
theme of Precipice. The resulting texts were
produced and performed by the 2008 English graduating
class of the NTS and recorded by the CBC in front
of a live studio audience at the Studio Hydro-Québec
of Montréal’s Monument-National on October
27th. The Precipice Radio Project features
work by 3rd year graduating playwright Charlotte
Corbeil-Coleman, 2007 Playwriting graduates
Ryan Griffith and Darrah
Teitel, Toronto-based playwright and actor
Carol Cece Anderson, and playwright
and PWM’s Artist-in-Residence Greg MacArthur.
This event was a rare recreation of the past glory
of the live radio format with a fresh, energetic perspective.
The Precipice Radio Project was directed and dramaturged
by Stephen Lawson, actor, director,
and Artistic Director of the experimental company
2boys.TV, and Paula Danckert, currently
the NAC’s English Theatre Company Dramaturg
and Associate Artist. The plays are:
Who Is That Old Black Woman?
by Carol Cece Anderson At a bus stop,
on a glistening cold Montreal afternoon, a white woman
looks into the eyes of an elderly black stranger,
embarks on a voyage of memory, and recalls a story
of budding interracial love, against the backdrop
of a 1960's society, on the brink of changing minds.
The Summer of February
by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman What
do you do when your mother makes pancakes out of tears,
your recycling talks to you, and death lives in your
faucets? Join us this week as February braves the
edge of her sanity.
Kind by Ryan
Griffith In the future, two salvage company
scouts encounter divine energy ...
unfortunately, they react to it in very different
ways.
Poutine by
Greg MacArthur On a freezing cold
New Years' Day, four friends brave the cold, empty
streets of Montreal in search of poutine. They end
up finding something altogether different. An urban
electronic tale. An homage to Montreal.
Palliative
by Darrah Teitel As an elderly woman
slips further and further back into her war time fantasies,
her daughter tries to cope with the painful realities
of losing a loved one. An unconventional family's
struggle.
Q airs Monday to Friday
on CBC Radio One at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. (CT 1 p.m.,
NT 2:30 p.m., NT 10:30 p.m.) as well as on Sirius
Satellite 137 (12 p.m., 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET).
NTS performers, designers, production
team, and crew participating in The
Precipice Radio Project are actors
Adam Burgess, Hannah Cheesman, Lindsey Clark, Zarrin
Darnell-Martin, Kayla Deorksen, Jake Epstein, Shannon
Kook-Chun, Robert Leveroos, Brendan McMurtry-Howlett,
Noah Reid, Andrew Joseph Richardson, and Bridget Wareham;
sound and lighting designers Eleanor
Antoncic, Jeremy Parker, Pierre-Luc Brunet, and Tuled
Giovanazzi; production team members
consisted of Production graduating students Stephanie
Link and Robert d’Ambrumenil, 2nd years Jose
Valdes, Chiharu Ono, Eric Read, and Sam Thompson;
and the crew was graduating student
Regina Rodriguez-Lopez , 2nd years Kathryn Chamney,
and Sean Poole, and 1st years Jessica Itiaba, Jesse
Paikin, Kai-Yueh Chen, Kate Sandeson, Kamilya Copney,
Nicole Olson Grant-Suttie, William Fallon, and Kira
Maros.
Special thanks go out to CBC
Producers Jane Lewis, Carolyn
Warren, Tom Anniko, Executive
Producer, Comedy /Drama Development, and Pierre
Landry, arts reporter for Daybreak, Montreal;
NTS Director of the Playwriting Program, Brian
Drader, NTS Artistic Director of the English
section, Sherry Bie, and to all those
who worked closely or from afar on this project.
The Precipice Radio Project has been
generously supported by the Zeller Family
Foundation.
PWM and CEAD
collaborate on readings of Tadoussac translations
As part of CEAD's Semaine
international de traduction 2007, PWM hosted Tadoussac
en traduction
on Monday, November 26 at 8:00 pm. This night of readings
for an invited audience of translators from around the
world featured excerpts from the Tadoussac Playwrights'
Residence 2007, PWM's translation/adaptation colony
for Canadian playwrights.
The evening was hosted by Linda
Gaboriau, and featured excerpts from:
Coma Unplugged by Pierre-Michel
Tremblay translated by Micheline Chevrier
Half Life by John Mighton
translated by Maryse Warda
24 Poses by Serge Boucher
translated and adapted by Shelley Tepperman
recovery by Greg MacArthur
translated by Philippe Ducros
The readings were followed by a wine
and cheese.
Micheline Chevrier and Pierre-Michel
Tremblay read from Coma Unplugged
Black Theatre Workshop and PWM present
PWM 2007 Holiday Fundraising
Raffle
$5 per ticket - or 3 for $10
This year's raffle drawing will take
place at our holiday party on Friday, December 7th.
Come and join us!
1st Grand prize:
A pair of Montreal-Stratford round-trip tickets from
VIA Rail Canada, a pair of tickets to a designated
performance during the Stratford Festival’s
2008 season, and two-night accommodations at Woodmont
Guesthouse Bed & Breakfast
2nd Grand prize:
One adult membership to a YMCA community centre
3rd Grand prize:
One SUPERPASS to the 2008 St.Ambroise Montreal Fringe
Festival
4th Grand prize:
One SUPERPASS to the 2008 St.Ambroise Montreal Fringe
Festival
5th Grand prize:
An 8-week acting class at ASM Performing Arts
Many other prizes to be won.
Thank you to all of our generous sponsors!
     
Soundings
Readings by Canadian playwrights
from their own works
featuring
Marcus Youssef
Tuesday, October 16,
2007 at 7:00 p.m.
at Playwrights’
Workshop Montréal, 4324 St. Laurent
Free Admission
This reading is made possible with
the support of
the Playwrights Guild of Canada and
the Canada Council for the Arts.
Since 1996, award-winning playwright,
essayist and broadcaster Marcus Youssef
has been writing in multiple forms about North America's
complicated relationship with the Middle East, both
before and after the so-called War on Terror. Marcus'
plays include A Line in the Sand (co-written
with Guillermo Verdecchia and recipient of the Chalmer’s
Canadian Play Award), Ali and Ali and the aXes
of Evil (co-written with Verdecchia & Camyar
Chai, and described by the Seattle Post as “the
funniest exposition of American foreign policy ever
devised”), Adrift on the Nile (winner
of the 2007 Alcan Performing Arts Award), True Lies
and numerous works for young audiences. Marcus also
co-founded CRANK Magazine with Matt Hern, was an Assistant
Professor of Theatre at Concordia University and is
a frequent contributor to all stations on the CBC
network. Marcus currently runs neworldtheatre
with his Co-Artistic Producers Camyar Chai and Adrienne
Wong. Currently he's producing Wajdi Mouwad's Tideline
for neworldtheatre & Touchstone Theatre, directing
a year long community collaboration with Immigrant
Activist Group No One Is Illegal Vancouver
and working as collaborating director (with Sarah
Stanley) on neworldtheatre and Teesri Duniya's coproduction
of My Name is Rachel Corrie, both in Montreal
and Vancouver's PuSh Festival. Marcus is also considering
becoming a librarian. A Line in the Sand,
Ali and Ali and the aXes of Evil, and Adrift
on the Nile are all published by Talonbooks.
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OOOO!
/ OUUH! - A PUBLIC READING
Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal (PWM)
in partnership with Tant Per Tant Theatre Translation
Inc. will be presenting a staged reading of an English
and French translation of Oooo! /Ouuh!, a
Catalan play by Gerard Vàzquez, translated
by Danielle Henripin (French translation), Elisabet
Ràfols and Michael Bantjes (English translation)
as part of Journées de la culture.
The reading will take place in English on Friday,
September 28 and in French on Saturday, September
29. Both readings are free to the public and will
begin at 8:00 p.m. at PWM (4324 St-Laurent Blvd. -
corner Marie-Anne).
Oooo / Ouuh! is a touching and powerful
comedy about the lives of a group of clowns in Nazi
Germany. Charlie Rivel, the most tender of clowns
is forced to perform for Hitler, the most barbaric
of dictators. Can art be guiltless? Does it have to
submit to power? Can an artist remain apolitical in
such political times? Can a clown get on with a Gestapo
agent? The staged reading will be directed by Stacey
Christodoulou, Artistic Director of The Other Theatre
and features the bilingual cast of Philippe Ducros,
Henri Gauthier, Alain Goulem, Alex Ivanovici, and
Neil Kroetsch.
EMMA
TIBALDO APPOINTED AS PLAYWRIGHTS' WORKSHOP MONTRÉAL’S
NEW ARTISTIC AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
After a comprehensive search, the
Board of Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal
(PWM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Emma
Tibaldo as the new Artistic and Executive Director
of PWM. Ms. Tibaldo will succeed outgoing Artistic
and Executive Director Paula Danckert.
Search Committee Chair and President
of PWM Alexis Diamond said of Ms. Tibaldo’s
appointment, "Emma Tibaldo was the unanimous
recommendation of the Hiring Committee, and enthusiastically
accepted by the Board, based on her thorough understanding
of, and commitment to, the organization, as well as
her strong ties with English and French artists, companies
and institutions in Montreal and beyond. She offers
a compelling vision of the role of Playwrights’
Workshop Montréal in Canadian theatre.”
Commenting on her appointment, Ms.
Tibaldo remarked, "My love and passion for
theatre and the stories it longs to tell are my principal
reasons for having sought the position of Artistic
and Executive Director of Playwrights' Workshop Montréal.
I believe in the possibility of affecting the world
through the visceral experience of theatre. I am profoundly
honoured by the opportunity to further the extraordinary
work of past Artistic Directors and continue PWM's
multifaceted relationships with playwrights from across
the country.”
Ms. Tibaldo is a familiar figure
to the organization as she served as Dramaturg-in-Residence
from 2004 until 2006. Since her departure she has
directed productions across the country from Fredericton,
NB, to Whitehorse, YK, and served as dramaturg to
numerous playwrights nationally. She has taught at
the National Theatre School of Canada, Concordia University
and McGill University. She is also the founding member
of two theatre companies, Rosebush Theatreworks, which
is dedicated to producing works by emerging women
playwrights, and Talisman Theatre, whose mandate is
to produce Québécois plays in translation.
Ms. Tibaldo is a native Montrealer
and fluent in three languages. She holds both English
and Theatre degrees from Concordia University and
is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada's
Directing Program. She brings with her a unique understanding
of the immigrant experience and strong ties to the
Montréal theatre community as well as artistic
connections across the country which will further
Playwrights' Workshop Montréal's philosophy
of excellence.
Founded over 43 years ago, Playwrights’
Workshop Montréal is a unique theatre company
working to enrich the creative process of theatre
professionals in Canada. A leading national professional
theatre centre, PWM is dedicated to the development
of contemporary work and new writers for the Canadian
stage. From dramaturgical consultation through to
public readings, PWM offers a critical and vibrant
environment for Canadian playwrights of both official
languages to further their craft and best prepare
new scripts for production.
PWM IS CELEBRATING
DOUGLAS CAMPBELL AND YOU SHOULD TOO!
Artwork by Katherine Vingoe-Kram |
Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal
is preparing a very special celebration to mark the
end of our 44th season as well as the 85th birthday
of one of Canada’s most distinguished and well-known
theatre artists, Douglas Campbell.
The magnificent actor born in Glasgow,
Scotland June 11, 1922 has worked internationally
as an actor, director and mentor to many an emerging
and established theatre artist and we are privileged
to have him as an integral part of the Montreal community.
We are inviting all our (and Douglas’)
friends and colleagues to come celebrate the life
and work of Douglas Campbell. If you have an anecdote
or story about Douglas, please let us know (514-843-3685).
There will be food and drink available. There is a
suggested donation of $5.00 at the door.
The party will be happening on Friday,
June 29, 2007 starting at 8pm at PWM (4324 Saint-Laurent,
corner Marie-Anne).
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