Projet nouveaux récits

This season, participants from the New Stories Project have been invited to tour with PWM across the province, presenting excerpts from their works in development. These pop-up performances and talk-backs will be a chance for our artists to share their unique creations in intimate settings, and will all take place in selected community centers and schools that serve neurodivergent populations.

Learn more about the New Stories Project participants.

BLXCK CXSPER
by KYNG ROSE

helpful/positive
by sam melnick

OTHER WORLDS
by STEPHEN PATRICK BOOTH

Aki Matsushita

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.

Bevin Dooley

Bevin Dooley (she/they) is a playwright, dramaturg, and educator based in Montréal. She is a graduate of both the University of Alberta’s Drama Department (Bachelor of Arts, 2013) and the Lir National Academy for Dramatic Art (Master of Fine Arts, 2015). Their dramaturgical practice is rooted in the empowerment of the playwright and values curiosity, clarity, self-reflection, and reciprocity in their creative collaborations. She aims to create strategies and frameworks support artists through their creative process, and is particularly interested in work that explores folklore, climate, horror, and the inner lives of youth. 

As a dramaturg, Bevin has worked with playwrights through The Write Stuff with Infinithéâtre, NextFest at Theatre Network, the University of Alberta’s New Works Festival, and Alberta Musical Theatre Company. From 2017 to 2022, she was Artistic Associate at Alberta Playwrights’ Network, offering dramaturgical support to Albertan writers, as well as coordinating and overseeing training and mentorship initiatives. She has also mentored emerging artists through Imago Theatre’s ARTISTA and Nested Circles programs. 

Bevin’s work as a playwright includes Nyctophobia, part of Here There Be Night (Workshop West Playwrights Theatre); IN CAMERA (CGAS Found Festival); and Slack Tide (Edmonton Fringe). Their play The Drowned was the runner up in Infinithéâtre’s 2022 Write-On-Q Competition. Their current projects include Aperture, a play with integrated film about masculinity, public image, and accountability, and Jenny Wren, a play for young audiences about a girl who enlists her local wildlife to help sabotage the construction of an AI data centre. Bevin is also part of the creative team of Climate Play, a national verbatim theatre project co-facilitated by Yvette Nolan and Joel Bernbaum.