In this program we provide extended periods of dramaturgy for playwrights who need time and dramaturgical support to delve into the underpinnings of their scripts and make significant shifts into a subsequent draft. The Residency program provides playwrights with a working environment free from the distractions of everyday life. Each writer is provided with a workspace, access to a dramaturg and a concentrated agenda of work for the duration of their stay. Writers are chosen at all levels of experience and with plays at various stages of development. Residencies range from three days to a month in length depending upon the needs of the writer and the resources available within our budget. These residencies have become hard sought after positions from writers all over the country because they are so productive.

Over the past three years residencies have included: Sonja Mills from Toronto who worked on the early drafts of The Danish Play, Marie Clements from Vancouver who worked on Burning Vision, Sheri-D. Wilson from Calgary returned for a residency after her work in the playwrights’ unit to continue her work on Between Lovers. Other residencies involved Charles Picco, M.J Kang, Kelly MacIntosh and Paul Thompson, Leah Cherniak and Martha Ross, Allen Cole and Maristella Roca, Ed Roy and Carol Anderson, all from Toronto. Jackie Torrens came from Nova Scotia to do pre-production work on her play Fables for the Eastern Front Theatre. Bernie Stapleton came from Newfoundland to work on her play The Pope and Princess Di which has since been picked up for production. Just recently we worked with Jillian Keiley and Robert Chafe with their play Burial Practices of the Early European Settlers Through to Today from Newfoundland, which is up and running as I write. Sherry-Lee Hunter came from Halifax, Nova Scotia and was joined by Alisa Palmer of Toronto to work on a new show After the End. Jim Warren and Guillermo Verdecchia were here for a week to research a new play that Jim is writing and will perform. Elise Gascon, a Montréal writer, spent two three day sessions on her new play Bye, Bye, Baby, which will be produced by Imago Theatre in their 2005 season.

Residencies permit us to forge longer term relationships with playwrights, particularly on projects that might develop over the course of a few years. The Residency program also allows us to meaningfully assist smaller theatres with very limited development budgets in helping their writers ready work for production. In the past we have provided residencies for writers working with Imago Theatre in Montréal, Nightwood Theatre, Cahoots Theatre Projects, Loud Mouth Asian Babes and Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto, Rumble Theatre and urban ink productions in Vancouver; Artistic Fraud in Newfoundland and Eastern Front Theatre in Nova Scotia.