Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal (PWM) and le Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD), in partnership with Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, Creative Gros Morne, the Bonne Bay Aquarium & Research Station, and with the vital support of the Fondation Cole, are pleased to announce the seven playwrights participating in the 2026 Résidence d’écriture théâtrale de Gros Morne. 

This dual-lingual residency welcomes playwrights from across Canada and gives the creative space to work and share in the unparalleled landscape of Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland and Labrador. The program offers dramaturgical conversations in French and English. 

For 10 days, Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard, Caroline Bélisle, Caleigh Crow, Coleen Shirin MacPherson, Jojo O’Neil, Pascale Rafie, and Ian Iqbal Rashid will be staying at the Bonne Bay Aquarium & Research Station in Norris Point. The artists-in-residence will have the opportunity to explore their plays through unstructured writing time, one-on-one dramaturgical conversations, and group discussions, held in both French and English.

Help support the artists of the 2026 Gros Morne Playwrights’ Residency by donating to PWM.

Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal (PWM) et le Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD), en partenariat avec Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, Creative Gros Morne, le Bonne Bay Aquarium & Research Station, et avec le soutien essentiel de la Fondation Cole, ont le plaisir de dévoiler les sept auteurs et autrices qui participeront à la Résidence canadienne d’écriture dramatique de Gros-Morne 2026.

Cette résidence bilingue accueille des écrivains de tout le pays pour partager un espace et nourrir des échanges portés par le paysage sans pareil du parc national du Gros-Morne, à Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador. Le programme offre un accompagnement dramaturgique en français et en anglais.

Pendant 10 jours, Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard, Caroline Bélisle, Caleigh Crow, Coleen Shirin MacPherson, Jojo O’Neil, Pascale Rafie et Ian Iqbal Rashid séjourneront au Bonne Bay Aquarium & Research Station à Norris Point. Les résidents auront l’occasion d’explorer leurs pièces pendant des périodes d’écriture non structurées, des conversations dramaturgiques individuelles et des discussions de groupe, qui auront lieu en anglais et en français.

Soutenez les artistes de la Résidence d’écriture dramatique du Gros-Morne 2026 en faisant un don à PWM.

Jean-philippe baril guérard (québec)

Né en 1988, Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard est auteur, comédien, et metteur en scène. Il a signé quatre romans, six pièces, et plusieurs scénarios pour le cinéma et la télévision.

Photo credit:  Guillaume Boucher

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT: Le mal nécessaire

Un enquêteur de l’Autorité des marchés financiers voit sa vie chamboulée lorsqu’il tente de mettre au jour une stratagème de délit d’initié sur un marché de prédictions et se retrouve à faire lui-même l’objet d’un pari mettant en jeu sa carrière, sa famille, et sa vie.

Caroline bélisle (nouveau-brunswick)

Caroline Bélisle est une comédienne, autrice dramatique et féministe ben ben fâchée diplômée de l’École nationale de théâtre du Canada et de l’Université de Moncton. Elle remporte le prix Gratien-Gélinas pour son texte Les remugles ou La danse nuptiale est une langue morte, également finaliste aux prix littéraires du Gouverneur Général. Elle est également récipiendaire de deux Éloizes de l’artiste de l’année en théâtre. Ses œuvres sont produites par le théâtre l’Escaouette, Satellite Théâtre, le Théâtre Populaire d’Acadie, le Théâtre des Béloufilles, le Théâtre Catapulte et le Théâtre La Seizième. Ses livres sont disponibles aux Éditions Perce-Neige et chez Bouton d’or Acadie.

Photo credit: Annie France Noël

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT: Bleue (titre provisoire)

Bleue (titre provisoire) met en scène Nadine, qui a récemment perdu sa job et qui est en train de virer folle dans l’appartement que sa femme a redécoré de fond en comble…de différentes valeurs de gris. Pour sortir de son marasme, Nadine développe une relation malsaine (si une telle chose est possible) avec le bleu. Cette relation grandiose et poétique lui permettra d’entrer en contact avec quelque chose en elle qui défie les lois du quotidien. C’est une pièce sur l’écosystème que les humains sont en train de bâtir pour eux-mêmes. C’est en quelque sorte un texte sur la couleur ou plutôt, sur les effets qu’a sur nous son absence.

caleigh crow (alberta)

Caleigh Crow is a queer Metis director, playwright, and performer from Mohkinstsis in Treaty 7 Territory. In 2024 she was honoured to receive the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for her play There is Violence, There is Righteous Violence, and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow, published by Playwrights Canada Press. That play was also a nominee for the Indigenous Voices Awards, Dora Mavor Moore Awards, and the Saskatoon and Area Theatre Awards. Most recently, she won the 2026 Betty Mitchell Award for Best New Play for Hucksterland, alongside songwriters Sacha Crow & Gus Rendell.

Photo credit: Sacha Crow

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT: SUPERPARAMAGNETISM

SUPERPARAMAGNETISM is an expansive sci-fi, time-travelling exploration of electric and human connectivity. The play begins in the year 2335 where an AI supercomputer has been running the show on earth for a century. Two humans attempt to use the earths magnetic field to unify all of humanity’s knowledge to hopefully destroy the computer and return the earth to humankind’s stewardship. Their attempt causes the play to move backwards in time from 2335 to 2024 to 1975 to 1935 to 1886 to 1412 to 1 000 BC to 30 000 BC. We meet many different characters who all experience electricity & technology according to their time period, but who are all ultimately seeking to be understood.

coleen Shirin macpherson (ontario)

Coleen Shirin MacPherson is a theatre artist, playwright, director, and Artistic Director of Open Heart Surgery Theatre based in Toronto. A graduate of École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, she creates poetic and experimental physical theatre exploring cross-cultural collaboration. Her work includes This Is Why We Live, which toured Canada, Europe and had its U.S. premiere at La MaMa in New York City, and Erased, a Dora Award–nominated play named one of Toronto’s best productions of 2024 (Toronto Star) and represented Canada at the 2026 Heidelberger Stückemarkt in Germany. She is the recipient of the Ken McDougall Award for Directing and is writing a new adaptation of The Persians, first developed at the Stratford Festival. Coleen is currently Assistant Professor and Mainstage Director at the University of Toronto, St. George.

Photo credit: ​​David Leyes

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT: The Persians Re-Imagined after Aeschylus

Coleen MacPherson’s adaptation of The Persians reimagines Aeschylus’ ancient tragedy for a contemporary audience, exploring how a 2,500-year-old text can speak to the realities of our world today. Building on Aeschylus’ radical choice to tell the story of his enemy, the adaptation expands the voices within the Persian Empire, including historical figures such as Artemisia of Caria, commander and advisor to Xerxes, King of Persia. Through a reimagined chorus of diverse and contradictory voices, the work examines the contradictions of power and ambition, and the devastating consequences of both. The Persians asks how ancient stories can illuminate our present and confront the human cause of war.

Jojo o’neil (Québec, ontario)

Jojo O’Neil is a playwright, storyteller, and solo-performer originally from Markham, Ontario. A recent graduate from The National Theatre School of Canada’s Playwriting program, her plays often explore themes such as madness, intergenerationality, desire, home, and love. Some of her plays include: The Harpy (solo-play, development funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, staged reading at The Pipeline Reading series 2024, directed by Barry Bilinsky) which won Infinithéâtre’s Write-On-Q! playwriting competition, Holes (staged reading at Centaur Theatre’s WinterWorks Festival 2026, directed by Christopher Morris & dramaturgy by Andrea Romaldi), & No Jumping (NTS New Words Festival 2026, directed by Azal Dosanjh).

Photo credit: Maxime Côté

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT: Sarah

Sarah follows six transexual women gathering in a crumbling Chinatown apartment in the midst of an ongoing eradication. War seeps through the cracks of the failing foundation as these women all look for one particular person who shares their name; Sarah, the only hormone dealer left in the city, who has gone MIA during an age where being trans gets you killed. Exploring blame, gatekeeping, & sisterhood, Sarah is a political drama using verbatim text to tell a story of six women’s struggle for life in a world that seeks to wipe their existence off the face of the Earth.

pascale rafie (QUÉBEC)

Diplômée de l’École nationale de théâtre en Écriture dramatique et également titulaire d’une maîtrise en Théâtre de l’UQAM, Pascale Rafie a écrit au fil des ans tant pour les jeunes publics (signalons Charlotte Sicotte) que pour les adultes (membre du collectif d’écriture de Cabaret neiges noires). On lui doit, entre autres, Soleil, Le Paradis mobile et Les Filles Lafaille. Plus récemment, on a pu voir La Recette de baklawa en traduction anglaise au Théâtre Centaur.

Enseignante au département de théâtre du Cégep de Saint-Laurent depuis 20 ans, elle est aussi active en médiation culturelle – mentionnons Belles-Sœurs d’ici et d’ailleurs, projet développé et animé en collaboration avec des femmes immigrantes de l’arrondissement de Saint-Laurent. Toujours traversée par les questions liées à l’immigration et à la place des femmes dans la société, elle poursuit sa route.

Photo credit: Jean-Pierre Gosselin

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT: Elle court

Adela, 39 ans, croit encore au bonheur. Entre l’amour qu’elle porte à ses deux enfants et l’emprise silencieuse d’un mari aussi absent que destructeur, elle vacille. Marquée, comme lui, par l’abandon, elle hésite entre fuir ou rester, jusqu’au jour où… un choix s’impose. Son cheminement se déploie en un tourbillon de souvenirs, de rêves grotesques et anxiogènes. La violence du mari est incarnée par les forces de la nature – orage, inondation ou séismes qui envahissent le monde d’Adela. Alors que tout tombe, elle trouve refuge dans le jardinage ou dans la garde-robe de la cave. La terre devient un espace de résistance et de transformation, où l’enfermement pourrait peu à peu se métamorphoser en germination et renaissance.

Ian Iqbal rashid (newfoundland and labrador)

Ian Iqbal Rashid is a poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. A writer and co-executive producer of the Peabody and Canadian Screen Award-winning comedy Sort Of (CBC/HBO Max), he previously wrote for the BAFTA-winning drama This Life (BBC). His feature films Touch of Pink et How She Move, both of which he directed, premiered and sold to Sony and Paramount, respectively, at Sundance.

His work has been commissioned by broadcasters and studios including the BBC, HBO, Showtime, Amazon, CBC, Crave, and Channel 4. Alongside screenwriting, he is an award-winning curator and poet, and the author of three collections, including Black Markets, White Boyfriends et Other Acts of Elision. His first play, Cocktail Hour, received a public workshop production in Halifax in 2026. Also in 2026, he served as a juror for the International Emmy Awards.

Born in Dar es Salaam and raised in Toronto, Rashid lived for many years in London, England and now resides in Corner Brook.

Photo credit: Liane Harris

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT: Cocktail Hour

1996. The AIDS drug cocktails have arrived, offering a future to men who had almost stopped believing in one. Over the course of a single evening, two long-time lovers invite a younger couple home for drinks. What begins as flirtation becomes a dangerous game of wit, seduction and psychological brinkmanship, as buried grief, artistic rivalry and old betrayals rise to the surface. Inspired by Maxim Mazumdar’s unrealized all-male production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Cocktail Hour is an intimate, darkly funny play about the stories we tell ourselves until history asks us to imagine a different future.

Leila Ghaemi (she/her) is a proud Persian dramaturg and theatre educator.  She received her BFA in Theatre Arts and MFA in Theatre Education & Direction from Boston University’s School of Theatre, where she trained in dramaturgical methods. Having spent over a decade working for various theatre organizations in the United States and Canada, Leila has been fortunate to evolve her artistic practices professionally and academically, specifically in new play development. Her artistic pillars include MENASA representation, radical theatre empowerment, and creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive spaces on and off stage. Leila also serves on the board for Persephone Productions Montreal. When not dreaming about theatre, her world revolves around her pit-pug puppy Gigi and her two very sassy cats: Leslie & Hiccup.

Leila Ghaemi (she/her) is a proud Persian dramaturg and theatre educator.  She received her BFA in Theatre Arts and MFA in Theatre Education & Direction from Boston University’s School of Theatre, where she trained in dramaturgical methods. Having spent over a decade working for various theatre organizations in the United States and Canada, Leila has been fortunate to evolve her artistic practices professionally and academically, specifically in new play development. Her artistic pillars include MENASA representation, radical theatre empowerment, and creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive spaces on and off stage. Leila also serves on the board for Persephone Productions Montreal. When not dreaming about theatre, her world revolves around her pit-pug puppy Gigi and her two very sassy cats: Leslie & Hiccup.

We’re pleased to welcome Maureen Labonté as the new Glassco Translation Residency host and translation dramaturg!

Maureen Labonté is a dramaturge, translator and teacher. She has coordinated a number of play development programmes in theatres and play development centres across the country including at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD) in Montreal, the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) and Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal. She has also worked as a dramaturge in many Franco-Canadian theatres, such as the Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario (Sudbury), Théâtre-Action (Ottawa), the Cercle Molière (Winnipeg) and L’Escaouette (Moncton).

Maureen has also worked extensively as a translation dramaturge. With Emma Tibaldo, she helped set up the Playwrights Workshop Montreal/Cole Foundation Mentorship for Emerging Translators in 2012, and is still involved as mentor and dramaturge. This highly successful programme is now in its eleventh cycle.

Maureen was the Jury Chair for the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre from 2009 to 2012.

From 2006 to 2011, she was Co-Director of the Banff Playwrights Colony at the Banff Center for the Arts. Prior to that, she worked at the Colony as resident dramaturge and then as Head of Program (2002-2005).

Maureen also worked at the National Theatre School of Canada for more than 20 years. In the mid-90’s, she set up and ran a pilot two-year Directing Programme and then went on to coordinate the Playwriting Programme and Playwrights’ Residency. She has taught at NTS-ENT in the Playwriting, Directing and Mise-en-scène programmes.

She now teaches master classes in Text Analysis in both French and English across the Country.

Maureen Labonté has translated more than fifty Quebec plays into English. One of the main focuses of her work has been in the area of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA). Also, And Slowly Beauty, her translation of Michel Nadeau’s Lentement la beauté was short-listed for the 2014 Governor General’s Award in Translation.

She lives in Montreal.

Aki is a biracial, Japanese-Canadian (nisei, second generation) dramaturg and arts educator raised in Ottawa and Tokyo within a family of pedagogues.

Aki’s love for theatre began in her formative years at a francophone Arts High School in Ottawa. She completed a Bachelor’s of Arts specialised in theatre, during that time, she participated in an international exchange studying for a year at the University of Birmingham, UK to immerse herself in English and European Theatre. In the years that follow, Aki completed her Masters of Arts in Theatre Theory and Dramaturgy, successfully defending her Thesis that examined the Intercultural Adaptations of Japanese Post-War Theatre Director, Suzuki Tadashi. Since moving to Montreal Aki has worked with emerging theatre artists in training at the National Theatre School of Canada.

Aki is fascinated by intercultural performance, as it fosters an exchange and seeks out connection between seemingly disparate entities, looking at the world through the lens of wanting to understand each other’s humanity across geographic, cultural, linguistic, temporal and cultural boundaries. Intercultural performance resonates deeply with Aki as a bi-racial artist whose mixed-identity has always been a centre point of her existence.

Aki has been engaging in dramaturgical collaboration apprenticeships for a number of years following her studies. Since joining PWM, Aki has collaborated with a number of artists in developing their projects and is continuously discovering new elements of her artistic process with every new collaboration.

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