Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal (PWM) and le Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD) are pleased to announce the playwrights who were selected to take part in the 2019 Gros Morne Playwrights’ Residency in Newfoundland.
From April 17-28, Julie Tamiko Manning (QC), Meghan Swaby (ON), Robert Chafe (St. John’s), Yolanda Bonnell (ON), Rébecca Déraspe (QC), Royds Fuentes-Imbert (QC), and Sébastien David (QC) will be staying at the Bonne Bay Marine Station located next to the Gros Morne National Park.
The Gros Morne Playwrights’ Residency brings French and English playwrights from across Canada together to write, dream, share and create. Headed by PWM and Le Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD) in partnership with Creative Gros Morne, Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Cole Foundation, the program offers dramaturgy in both official languages.
The residency, hosted by Emma Tibaldo, Artistic Director of PWM, and Paul Lefebvre, Dramaturgic Counsellor at the CEAD, will give priority to an individual writing retreat while also offering group discussions, encounters, and public readings of work in progress.
THE PWM PARTICIPANTS
JULIE TAMIKO MANNING
Play in development: MIZUSHŌBAI
Julie Tamiko Manning is an award-winning Montreal actor and theatre creator. Selected acting credits include: Annie in Jean Dit, Elena in Butcher (Centaur), Isabella Bird in Top Girls (Segal), and Emilia in Othello (Scapegoat Carnavale). Her first play, Mixie and the Halfbreeds (with Adrienne Wong) was recently produced by fuGEN in Toronto and her second play The Tashme Project (with Matt Miwa), a verbatim retelling of the Japanese Canadian internment experience, has recently finished touring Toronto and Vancouver. Her third play, Mizushōbai, commissioned by Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, is about Kiyoko Tanaka Goto, a Japanese picture-bride turned ‘underground’ business woman in 1930’s British Columbia.
MEGHAN SWABY
Play in development: Breadfruit
Meghan Swaby is an actor and playwright born and raised in Toronto. Her play Venus’ Daughter was produced by Obsidian Theatre in 2016 and was recently included on The SureFire List (Playwrights Guild of Canada) as one of the top 23 recommended plays in Canada. She has participated in various playwrighting programs over the years, such as; Nightwood Theatre’s Write from the Hip, Diaspora Dialogues Playwright Residency and The Stratford Festivals’ Playwrights Retreat. In 2017, Meghan was one of 50 playwrights selected to have their work included in, 50in50: Writing Black Women Into Existence which was curated by Dominique Morisseau at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn, New York.
ROBERT CHAFE
Play in development: Everybody Just Calm the Fuck Down
Robert Chafe has worked in theatre, dance, opera, radio, fiction and film. His stage plays have been seen in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and in the United States, and include Oil and Water, Tempting Providence, Afterimage, Under Wraps, Between Breaths, and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (adapted from the novel by Wayne Johnston.) He has been shortlisted twice for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and he won the award for Afterimage in 2010. He has been guest instructor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, and The National Theatre School of Canada. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is the playwright and Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland.
YOLANDA BONNELL
Play in development: My Sister’s Rage
Yolanda Bonnell is a Queer 2 Spirit Ojibwe/South Asian performer and creator from Fort William First Nation in Thunder Bay, ON. Now based in Toronto, and a graduate of Humber College’s Theatre Performance program, Yolanda was named one of NOW Magazine’s Theatre Discoveries and most exciting artists to watch in Summerworks 2016. Her solo show bug, completed a tour of the unceded Coast Salish territories, followed by a premiere in the Luminato Festival. She was also a part of Factory Theatre’s The Foundry, a creation program for new career writers, where her play, Scanner continues to be developed. Yolanda also completed a season at the Stratford Festival as well as a residency at the Banff Playwright’s Lab with her most recent piece, White Girls in Moccasins. www.yolandabonnell.com
THE CEAD PARTICIPANTS
RÉBECCA DÉRASPE
Play in development: Ceux qui se sont évaporés
Rébecca Déraspe completed the Playwriting Program at the National Theatre School in May 2010. She has written several plays that have been performed and translated around the world, including Deux ans de votre vie, Plus que toi, Peau d’ours, Gamètes, Nino, Je suis William, Le merveilleux voyage de Réal de Montréal, Partout ailleurs, and Nos petits doigts. She is also a member of Théâtre la Licorne’s playwright-in-residence program. She won the 2018 Critics’ Award for Best Young Audience Play for Je suis William, Best Script Montreal 2017 for Gamètes and the 2010 BMO Playwright Award for Deux ans de votre vie.
ROYDS FUENTES-IMBERT
Play in development: Taxidermie
Born in Havana, Royds Fuentes-Imbert completed a degree in Theatre at the University of Arts of Cuba (ISA) specializing in Dramaturgy and Directing before going on to teach theatre history and dramaturgy. A poet, playwright and director, he has published several French-language plays. He has been living in Montreal since 1997 where he pursues research in anthropology and theatre. He joined the faculty of the École supérieure de théâtre de l’UQAM in 2017, where he teaches, among other courses, a dramaturgy workshop focused on playwriting (Atelier de dramaturgie : Écriture dramatique) and a course on dramaturgy and theatrical poetry (Dramaturgie et poétiques théâtrales). He has since combined academic activities (teaching and research).
SÉBASTIEN DAVID
Play in development: Fins et suites
A graduate of the Performance Program at the National Theatre School (2006), Sébastien David is also a playwright and director as well as Artistic Director of La Bataille, a theatre company specializing in the creation of new works. An award-winning playwright, he wrote T’es où Gaudreault précédé de Ta yeule Kathleen (2011), Les morb(y)des (2013), Les haut-parleurs (2015) as well as Dimanche napalm (2016), winner of the prestigious Governor General’s Award in 2017. All his works are published by Leméac Éditeur. He is on faculty at the Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe Theatre School and is on the board of directors of several arts organizations.
