Apply Now: Writing and Devising For Puppetry With Clea Minaker

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Dates: November 5-8th, 2019 (4-day workshop)
Time: 10 AM – 3 PM Each day
Location: Maison internationale des arts de la marionnette: 30 Avenue Saint-Just, Outremont, QC
Fee: $60 (please contact us if this fee would be an obstacle to your participation)

Writing and Devising Puppetry: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Creation

Presented in collaboration with the Association Québécoise des marionnettistes (AQM)

This  four-day workshop is designed as a laboratory to explore and experiment with puppetry and the interdisciplinary creation methods it employs as unique form of scenic writing.

In puppetry, narratives unfurl as interrelated threads woven from; objects and materials, movement and presence, light, sound and/or text. As performers activate these elements: bringing them into relationship with each other, with time, and with space: a singular poetic language is formed.

This workshop asks the question, what does it mean to create and compose in a language that is both material and time based? What are visual dramaturgies? And, where do we begin when we wish to ‘write’ with images?

Throughout the workshop, participants will be invited to engage in puppetry and performance exercises, as well as to experiment with visual mediums and creative writing techniques, in the construction of performed visual narratives.

This workshop is not designed as an introduction to technical aspects of creating or manipulating puppets, but views the puppetry arts as a large family of theatrical forms wherein material and performer meet. The workshop invites participants of diverse backgrounds (performance, puppetry, design, writing, stage technique, visual arts etc…) to gain greater perspective on the unique storytelling opportunities that puppetry presents.

In addition to structured improvisations, individual and group exercises, participants will be given (some) opportunities to explore projects of personal interest within the context of the workshop.

Note: This workshop will take place primarily in English, but many of the exercises and discussions will be led in English and French in order to best accommodate all participants.

How to Apply:

Please send your CV and/or bio as well as a brief paragraph explaining why you are interested in this workshop, and your experience with puppetry, and/or interdisciplinary approaches to creation to harris@playwrights.ca using the subject line: Exploring Practice with Clea Minaker.  The deadline to apply is Thursday October 3rd, 2019 before 1pm

Biography of Clea Minaker

Clea Minaker is a puppeteer, designer, director, and interdisciplinary creator who graduated from the sixth promotion (2002-2005) at L’École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville‐Mézières, France. Through her personal creations, Clea has explored an interest for shadow, light, live video projections, as well as the poetics of manipulation and corporeal gesture.

She has collaborated across artistic disciplines: in theatre, live music, opera, dance, film, and visual arts, including collaborations with Feist (The Reminder Tour 2007/2008), Atom Egoyan, So-called, Kid Koala. She has created works for: the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Convergence: an International Summit on Art and Technology at the Banff Centre, IF! Istanbul, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and Festival Casteliers. Clea premiered her first full-length solo performance The Book of Thel, at Théâtre Lachapelle, Scènes Contemporains in 2013.

Clea has taught puppetry, shadow puppetry, and interdisciplinary creation at; U.Q.A.M ‘d.e.s.s marionette contemporain’, Concordia University, National Theatre School of Canada, Playwright’s Workshop Montreal, U.B.C.O, Mcgill University. She is currently co-director of the Banff Centre Puppet Intensive offered by The Old Trout Puppet Workshop.

In 2009 Clea was awarded the Siminovitch Protégé Prize for Theatre Design by prize Laureate and puppeteer Ronnie Burkett.

This workshop is presented in collaboration with:

Association québécoise des marionnettistes

Our exploring practice series is supported by:

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Apply Now: Theatre Translation Workshop with Frank Heibert

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Dates: September 23, 24 & 25 (3-day workshop)
Time: 9:30 AM – 5 PM (Including a lunch break) 
Location: PWM, 7250 Clark #103, Montréal, QC. 
Fee: $90

Presented in collaboration with Le Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD), this 3-day workshop is led by prolific German theatre translator Frank Heibert. The workshop, which will include group discussions, theoretical lectures and translation exercises built around specific case studies, is aimed at emerging to mid-career theatre translators.

Guiding questions will include:

  • How do you find your characters’ voices?
  • What are similarities and differences between translation and adaptation?
  • In cases where a translation is commissioned for a specific production, should the translator’s vision take priority over the director’s vision?

The practice of working off of a word-for-word translation in collaboration with a translator fluent in the source language will also be discussed.

Participants are encouraged to bring in a translation project in progress. However, translators not currently working on a project are also encouraged to apply. The target language of these projects can be French or English, and the source language should ideally be one of the following languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese. Participants’ projects will be discussed in detail and will help to determine the topics of the workshop.

The workshop will be led in English and French, depending on the needs and fluency of the participants.

Application guidelines:

  • Send applications to harris@playwrights.ca with the subject line Exploring Practice with Frank Heibert.
  • Please attach the following three documents:
    • The translation project that you plan on discussing during the workshop: please attach roughly 10 pages of both your translation and the original script as well as a brief synopsis of the piece. (Excerpts of the translation are not mandatory, but applications containing excerpts will be prioritized.)
    • A letter of intention (1 page maximum).
    • An up-to-date CV.
  • Application deadline: 11 AM on June 28, 2019

About the Instructor:

Frank Heibert lives in Berlin and has studied literature in Germany, Italy, and France. Since 1983, he has worked as a translator of literature from English, French, Italian and Portuguese into German. From 1990-1995, he was the co-publisher of his own small publishing house Zebra Literaturverlag. He has also worked as an editor, a speaker,  a critic and a professor at Free University of Berlin. He is a member of PEN International, the worldwide writers’ association and is the winner of numerous literary awards for writing and translation.

He has translated over 95 novels and story collections by, among many others, Don DeLillo, Richard Ford, William Faulkner, Boris Vian, Alfred Jarry, Marie Darrieussecq, Yasmina Reza, and Raymond Queneau. He has also translated roughly 110 plays, by playwrights such as Tony Kushner, Neil LaBute, Nicky Silver, George F. Walker, Jonathan Garfinkel, Terrence McNally, Martin Crimp, Yasmina Reza, Italo Svevo, and Lina Wertmüller as well as Quebec playwrights Michel Marc Bouchard, Suzanne Lebeau, and Olivier Kemeid.

 

PRESENTED IN COLLABORATION WITH:

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THIS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY IS MADE POSSIBLE BY:

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4 questions with Julie Tamiko Manning on Gros Morne Playwrights’ Residency

by Harris Frost

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The 2019 Gros Morne Playwrights’ Residency in Newfoundland headed by PWM and Le Centre des Auteurs Dramatiques (CEAD) wrapped up last month. Montreal-based playwright and actor Julie Tamiko Manning was one of this year’s 7 participants.

 

PWM: How exactly were the 10 days structured?

Julie Tamiko: Most of the 10 days we pretty much had to ourselves to do whatever we wanted. Then in the evenings, we had an hour-long meeting all together with all the other playwrights. We each got the chance to either do a little reading of our what we’re working on or talk about our process during one of these meetings.

PWM: Did it feel a little strange to be with so many other playwrights while you’re working individually?

Julie Tamiko: Well, even though we weren’t in the same space all day, I think the fact that we were all there to do the same thing was kind of a uniting thing. You would ask “How’s your writing going today?” and someone would answer “Terrible!” or “It’s a good day, today!” and you would know what that meant because you’d probably gone through the exact same thing the day before.

PWM: Could you speak a little about your piece, Mizushōbai?

Julie Tamiko: It’s a commission by Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, the first play in what is to become an annual series called More Than a Footnote about Canadian figures who have been sort of lost to history, who don’t have as much written about them as other historical figures.

It’s called Mizushōbai, which literally translates from Japanese as “the water trade”, it’s a euphemistic term that means “night-time entertainment”, as in, the sex industry. It’s about the life of this woman Kiyoko Tanaka Goto who came from Japan to Canada as a picture bride in 1916, did years of manual labour, saved up her money and opened a restaurant with 3 other women where they would make and sell alcohol. Then later she bought a hotel and turned it into a brothel. In 1942, she was interned with other Japanese Canadians. After internment, I believe she pretended to be Chinese in order to go back to the West coast, because the Japanese weren’t allowed back to the coast until 1949. She opened up a few gambling clubs in Chinatown. She died in 1982.

When I started writing this play about her I was having trouble figuring out how I was going to write a biography without it being a straight biography, I didn’t want to just transcribe the oral interview I have been working from, so I started out with a lot of disjointed poetry because there’s not a whole lot of information about her. And it was kind of a struggle to figure out how to stick with the facts of her life as well as figure out the rest through me. I was surprised because I went to the residency with ten or fifteen pages and I ended up with almost a whole first draft. And I almost didn’t realize that I had written it while I was there.

PWM: During the residency, did find that your writing process was different from usual?

Julie Tamiko: It was so amazing to be able to have every day to write. I had really made sure that I cleared my schedule so that I could think about writing. I actually really surprised myself because in a day I would do anywhere between one and six hours of writing but by the end of the residency, I was surprised to see just how much I had written. I think it would have taken me about six months to do what I did in ten days at this residency.

It’s going to take a long time for me to actually finish the draft though, because I won’t have the time that I had while at the residency. I’m going to have to try to recreate that somehow.

 

Julie will perform her show The Tashme Project – co-created with Matt Miwa – at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa as part of the 2019 Prismatic Arts Festival in September.

Photo (Top to bottom): Royds Fuentes-Imbert, Emma Tibaldo, Robert Chafe, Paul Lefebvre, Julie Tamiko Manning, and Yolanda Bonnell

REGISTER NOW: Grant Writing Workshop for Emerging Artists

Exploring Practice with Jesse Stong

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Dates: April 16, 17, 18 2019 (3-day workshop)
Time: 6 PM-10 PM (Group sessions end at 9 PM, with optional additional consultation until 10 PM)
Location: PWM
Fee: $45 (Please contact us if this fee would be a barrier to your participation)

Using innovative and interactive activities, Jesse Stong (Art Educator/Playwright) will support emerging artists to develop a strong application for their own future project grants. From seeding and exploring initial ideas to developing dynamic writing samples, and participating in group brainstorms to elaborate and articulate project outlines with realistic timelines and budgets. By the end of this hands-on sessions each participant will leave with their own completed first draft of a grant proposal, as well as many tips on finding a diversification of funding, independent fundraising strategies, and guidance on building partnerships for the future life of their proposed project.

Application guideline
  • Send a paragraph describing your interest in the workshop.
  • Please attach a bio and/or CV.
  • Send applications to jesse@playwrights.ca and harris@playwrights.ca
    with subject line: Exploring Practice with Jesse Stong
  • Application deadline:  1 PM on April 4, 2019
Topics Covered

a) General Grant Writing Tips/Cautions
b) Stress and Time Management/Infusing GRANT WRITING into your artistic practice
c) Hands-On Project Proposal Building (developing treatment, describing project)
d) Creative Activities (exploring innovative grant writing processes)
e) Expressing authentic NEED and attracting SUPPORT
f) Group Brainstorm Sessions (exploring ideas, developing proposals further in the workshop)
g) Editing and Increasing Impact (How to sharpen your grant)
h) Action planning/specific measurable steps towards grant submission
i) Ongoing Discussions/Group Sharing of Resources/Sources of Funding

Expectations
  • Participants should come to the workshop with a project/residency idea they are genuinely interested in developing a grant proposal for (the idea can be fully developed or a seed of a new project)
  • Participants should be expected to engage with the hands-on process.
  • Participants will support the ideas of others/contribute to the group discussions.
  • Participants will leave with a clear plan to continue to process forward
About the Instructor

Jesse Stong is curently completing his fourth year designing and leading PWM’s Young Creators Unit. Jesse is a graduate of Playwriting from the National Theatre School of Canada and is completing his Masters in Art Education at Concordia University. He was recently assistant curator for the National Art’s Centre Disability Summit, and in 2016 received the Michaëlle Jean Foundation award for his innovative writing/puppetry workshops for schools and youth groups. Jesse is a proud member of the board of directors at Les Muses: Centre for dance and performance training, for people living with intellectual differences, as well as a writing facilitator for the Quebec Writers Federation.

 

TRAINING MADE POSSIBLE BY

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Apply now: Structure (for Writers who Hate Structure)

Exploring Practice with Eric Micha Holmes

Dates: March 18, 20 & 22, 2019
Time: 10AM to 3PM (15 hours total)
Location: PWM
Fee: $45 (Please contact us if this fee would be a barrier to your participation)
Application deadline: February 24, 2019

This three-day workshop is aimed at playwrights who have a project they want to revisit—or have been chronically stuck on.

Ideal applicants are emerging/mid-career writers who may be familiar with Aristotle, Freytag, and Joseph Campbell, but haven’t read them in a while—or have found them unhelpful because they work in non-traditional modes. This workshop can be used to manipulate the thinkers mentioned above toward the playwright’s own unique, innovative, and bold artistic goals. Participants will also have the opportunity to hear (small selections) of their work read out loud and discussed rigorously using the tools being developed in this workshop.

This workshop will include:

  1. Overview of dramatic structure drawing from an eclectic variety of sources from antiquity to the modern day
  2. Prompts that may include some light writing exercises to share
  3. In-depth discussion, argument, and practice

How to Register:

Send applications to: harris@playwrights.ca and emma@playwrights.ca.
Use subject line: Exploring Practice with Eric Micha Holmes
Deadline to Apply: February 24, 2019
Note: Please include your CV/Bio as well as brief paragraph explaining your interest in this training.

Biography:

Eric Micha Holmes is a playwright and radio dramatist whose work has been heard on the BBC (“Care Inc.”) and seen at The National Black Theatre (“Mondo Tragic,”) The New Black Fest and MCC Theatre (“Pornplay; or, Blessèd Are The Meek,”) and New York Theatre Workshop (“Nimpsey Pink.”). He’s a Dramatist Guild Fellow, Audible Award Recipient, and resident playwright of the National Black Theater.

His mono-play, “Walking Next To Michael Brown: Confessions Of A Tragic Mulatto,” was commissioned by The New Black Fest and has toured with Barrymore-Nominated “Hands Up: 7 Playwrights / 7 Testaments” to theatres across the country including:  The Brooklyn Museum Of Art, The Red Door Theatre, Crowded Fire Theatre, The Museum Of The Moving Image, The Hansberry Project, and Flashpoint Theatre.

Eric’s Website
Interview with Breaking Character Magazine 

 

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Ed Roy Speaks on New Show, Creativity and Assembly Lines

Ed Roy
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By Harris Frost

Dora Award-winning theatre practitioner Ed Roy spoke with us in July about his new one-man show The History of the World which he’s developing in collaboration with PWM.

 

PWM: To start, could you speak briefly about this new project you’re working on?

Ed Roy: I’m working on a one-man show called The History of the World, which was inspired by an investigative look into my childhood and the people who raised me. It’s a fusion of a lecture and storytelling. It’s about the correlation between the lecturers’ personal history, my personal history, and historical events. And how larger events in history affect our lives in ways we aren’t conscious of.

PWM: You call this a hybrid performance. What does that entail?

Ed Roy: Well, it’s interactive in a way. I not only propose a thesis, I also interact with the audience asking them questions about their own relationship with history and consciousness. So there’s that element to it as well as the theatrical aspects of it.

PWM: I came across a video from 2013 of you performing an early version of this piece. How much has it changed in the last five years?

Ed Roy: I was an instructor at Guelph University and that’s really where I developed my lecturing style. What I find was that my students lacked an overview of history, culture, art and how that intersects with their own creation. And then I got this inspiration to start doing a three and half minute improv called The History of the World in 3 ½ Minutes. I started expanding on that gradually over the next few years. Later, when I was at the Rubaboo festival in Edmonton, the festival organizer suggested that I do a version of it, very last minute. I performed it with no notes or anything and it ended up being four hours long.

So by the time we got to that [2013] workshop you mentioned, I was starting to play with physical elements and I thought “Why am I lecturing on the history of the world?” and I started to intersperse my own personal story because I started to do investigative work to find out my personal history. And my personal history was truly clouded. So I started to infuse the lecture with that. But it was still very raw.

The mash-up between the personal stories and the historical lecture wasn’t quite melding yet, but the idea was there. And between then and now, this project has always been in the back of my mind. Now, I’ve cannibalized a lot of what was in those original versions so I really have about three plays that have congealed into one. I liken it to a painting. Any painting that we see, we’re seeing the result of many paintings that are layered beneath the painting in front of us. That’s what this is. And so is history.

PWM: What kinds of spaces do you plan on performing this piece in?

Ed Roy: I don’t know, but I did originally think about doing it in a lecture hall. Because a lecture hall is invariably theatrical. It has all the ingredients of what theatre is. So it could be interesting to do it there. [The piece] does involve a gigantic weather balloon that I use as a projection surface and for other things, so that I don’t know about that yet.

PWM: Why did you choose to work with PWM on this?

Ed Roy: A bit of it is synchronicity. But I am originally from Montreal. When Paula Danckert was here I would always be dropping in. I had a discussion with Emma a few years ago about this piece because I was looking for a dramaturg.

I think that dramaturgy works best when there’s a personal relationship as well. I am also a dramaturg myself. And to me, the best dramaturg is a knowledgeable person who can invest themselves personally in a project. So the journey becomes shared. And in the past couple of workshops that’s what Emma and I have been doing.

PWM: When will the show be premiering?

Ed Roy: How dare you!

In an ideal world: 2020 or 2021. Yesterday would be great but it needs more time. So often we rush toward that product. And in the early stages in my career as a director/dramaturg, we would do shows very, very quickly. Or I would be brought in as a director on a show with a ten- day-long rehearsal period, for a play that wasn’t finished. And I acquired the skill set to put the shows together very quickly. But on this show, I’m building relationships that’ll support how I want to work.

PWM: Does the fact that this show is so personal change your approach to writing it?

Ed Roy: It is personal. But everything we do is personal. I can’t speak for everyone, but if I’m going to spend time with an artist and we’re going to put a show on together, then the subject matter has to be something that I believe in. And it represents an aspect of me, one way or another. So if a show goes up and it’s shitty, I take that personally.

PWM: Even in the type of situation you were talking about earlier where you were brought in to a show with very little rehearsal time?

Ed Roy: I married myself completely to those shows. But here’s the thing, I died a thousand deaths when they didn’t work. I also called an end to that when I knew it wasn’t working for me. Because I decided that I’m not on an assembly line, if I had wanted to be on one I would have made that choice in my early twenties and worked at a car factory. I think that’s a trap. But that’s the challenge of this field. I can’t make this decision for anyone else but when I take on a project I take it personally.

To know something well, to come up with something original, you have to discard so much before you get to something interesting. It takes time. So with a project that has taken so long, there were projects in between and that’s also part of the process. Sometimes you pick something up off the back-burner and look at it with new eyes. And right now, all I have on my mind is this project. And then other things will reveal themselves.

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