Tag: Leadership

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PWM is delighted to announce that our Board of Directors and hiring committee have appointed Anne-Sophie Grenier as our new Managing Director.

Anne-Sophie is appointed to the position following the departure of former Managing Director Lesley Bramhill, who was an integral part of the PWM team for five and a half years. Given Anne-Sophie’s education in arts management, leadership experience, and her artistic practice we are excited for the impact she will make at the organization and in the Montréal theatre community at large.

Last year, in collaboration with Arts Consulting Group, we shifted our organizational structure to better support our internal leadership and honour our spirit of collaboration. The new structure of our organization supports a co-leadership between the Artistic and Managing Directors.

After a year of transitions and adaptations to the pandemic context, we look hopefully to the future of our organization under the new co-leadership team of Sarah and Anne-Sophie. This new chapter will yield fruitful collaborations and creative processes that we are excited to realize!

“I am honored by the trust that the Board and hiring committee have placed in me to be the new Managing Director in co-leadership with Sarah. Most recently, I was working in the visual arts while maintaining my own writing and acting practice; theatre has been my greatest love and truest friend, and I am happy to be able to bring my experience and passion to the role of Managing Director. I am excited about collaborating with the wonderful team here and the larger Montreal theatre community, putting my managerial and leadership experience towards supporting the important work done by everyone involved with PWM.” 

– Anne-Sophie Grenier, Managing Director of PWM

A PDF of this announcement can be found here:

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It is with gratitude for her dedication to our community that the Board of Directors announces Lesley Bramhill’s departure from her position as the Managing Director of Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal.

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“The announcement of Lesley’s departure leaves us with many emotions: the sadness to see her go, the gratitude for her continuous work at PWM and commitment to the arts, as much as the excitement for her as she starts a new amazing opportunity.” – Tiffanie Guffroy, Treasurer of PWM 

Lesley stepped into the role of General Manager with PWM in 2016. Collaborating with former Executive and Artistic Director Emma Tibaldo, Lesley impacted PWM’s sphere greatly. Her accomplishments include helping to move the organization into its location at 7250 Clark, helping to double the organization’s operating budget, and collaborating on expanding PWM’s programming and operations. She also collaborated with her colleagues in arts advocacy in Quebec and Montreal to help advance the English language arts sector.  In 2019, she was awarded the Unsung Hero of the Theatre award at the META’s, specifically for this work.

In 2021, after five years as the General Manager at Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, Lesley was appointed Managing Director, creating the first co-leadership team with Artistic Director Fatma Sarah Elkashef. On Lesley’s time at PWM, Sarah notes that: 

“Lesley’s work has helped transform PWM in profound ways over the past 5.5 years. I am sad to see my co-leader go but very grateful to her and the Board for creating this new dynamic structure for PWM. Lesley’s positive impact will be felt for a long time to come. We will miss you and wish you all good things, Lesley!”   -Fatma Sarah Elkashef, Artistic Director of PWM. 

Lesley’s presence, leadership, and passion will be deeply missed by her colleagues, our Board of Directors, and the Montréal theatre community as a whole. We would like to extend the warmest thank you to Lesley for her role in advancing artistic practice at PWM.

Lesley’s last day at PWM is on February 18, 2022. Our team and board are already working towards the recruitment of a new Managing Director, who will work alongside Fatma Sarah Elkashef. We are confident that this new chapter for PWM will be fruitful and are excited for the artistic collaborations and creations to come. 

You can view the job posting for Managing Director here.

A PDF version of this announcement can be found here.

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After an extended leadership search, led by our board of directors and hiring committee, PWM is delighted to announce that Fatma Sarah Elkashef has been appointed as our new Artistic Director.

As a longstanding dramaturg with Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, and an outstanding theatre artist in our community, Sarah will shape the future of our organization with passion and advance dramaturgical practice at a national level. 

Sarah’s role as Artistic Director also establishes a new organizational structure for Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, creating a co-leadership team between Fatma Sarah Elkashef as Artistic Director and Lesley Bramhill as the newly-appointed Managing Director.

Fatma Sarah Elkashef

is a dramaturg and theatre maker with a practise in new play development and interdisciplinary creation. Born and raised in the U.K. to Egyptian and Dutch parents, Sarah has been based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal since 2011. Previously she was the senior reader at Soho Theatre in London and worked in New York City for eleven years as a producer, company manager, literary associate and director. Sarah is a graduate of Warwick University in English Literature and Theatre (U.K.), has an M.A. in Theatre from Hunter College (CUNY, NYC), and a Graduate Diploma in Communications from Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). At PWM she founded the Interdisciplinary Writers’ Lab to explore non-text centered approaches to making performance and the remote Writers’ Room to foster solidarity amongst playwrights during the pandemic. Since 2012 Sarah has worked across programs at the National Theatre School of Canada as a dramaturg, creator, mentor, and teacher. Read more about Sarah.

Following the departure of Emma Tibaldo, after fourteen influential years at the helm of Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal in the position of Executive and Artistic Director, we look hopefully to the future of our organization under new leadership.

In collaboration with Arts Consulting Group, and our board of directors, Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal has shifted our organizational structure to better support our internal leadership.

In addition to the appointment of Fatma Sarah Elkashef as Artistic Director, Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal is delighted that Lesley Bramhill, our former General Manager, will be moving forward with our organization in the role of Managing Director.

The establishment of this new co-leadership team honours PWM’s spirit of collaboration and we are excited to see how Sarah and Lesley will shape the future of our organization.

Access to a downloadable PDF of this press release is available here:

It is with gratitude for her dedication to the organization and the theatre community, that our Board of Directors announces the upcoming departure of long-standing Executive and Artistic Director Emma Tibaldo. After 13 years at the helm of the organization pushing the boundaries of dramaturgy, Emma will make way for a new generation of leadership.

“Emma’s impact on the Canadian theatre stage is immeasurable. At Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, she has collaborated with hundreds of artists and spearheaded the development of innovative works across the nation. Her tireless dedication to supporting artists and bringing unheard stories to life is a true inspiration,” says Board President Naïma Kristel Phillips. “I particularly appreciate Emma’s ability to build community and make artists feel at home. Along with the team at PWM, she has created a space that welcomes and celebrates the voices of creators who might otherwise be overlooked. We see this leadership transition as an opportunity to build on Emma’s legacy and continue to delve deeper as PWM leaps into the future.”

Emma stepped into the Executive and Artistic Director role in early 2008. During her time at PWM, she successfully transformed the organization from a member-based service organization to a nationally-mandated theatre development centre, further expanding its mandate to support interdisciplinary performance. Emma has worked with playwrights from across the country, building lasting dramaturgical relationships, and bringing countless new Canadian works to life. She continued to grow PWM into an organization dedicated to discovery and experimentation. 

As Artistic Director, Emma established the Gros Morne Playwrights’ Residency, in collaboration with the CEAD, bringing French and English playwrights together to write, dream, share and create, and the EstérELLE residency, focused on the development of new plays by English Language Québec female playwrights. Emma is a staunch supporter of theatre translation, further developing the Glassco Translation Residency in Tadoussac which, to date, translated 63 plays for the stage, and launching the Cole Foundation Mentorship for Emerging Translators, set up to identify and mentor the next generation of translators. 

“Sometimes you just need to leap into the unknown—now is that time for me.” Emma says, “I made this decision knowing that the organization was ready for new leadership. The company has grown, the process of dramaturgy has deepened, and the studio has finally come to completion. The relationships I have developed while at PWM have inspired and sustained me. I am incredibly grateful to our General Manager Lesley Bramhill, Dramaturgs Fatma Sarah Elkashef, Jesse Stong, and Maureen Labonté, our incredible staff-current and past, tireless board, and the innumerable artists and community members who have all carried PWM with me. Thank you. Deeply. PWM is the sum of the incredible humans who have called it home. I can’t wait to see what happens next. Magic exists, because creators dare to dream.”

Just last year, Emma was the recipient of the Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy. This prestigious accolade demonstrates that the international community, too, took notice of the work she accomplished during her tenure at PWM.

On Emma’s time at the organization, Lesley Bramhill, PWM’s General Manager says: “Emma’s dedication for emerging and established artists alike is remarkable. I will continue to be inspired by her leadership, passion and care. As PWM’s GM, I witnessed the impact she made on our local and national theatre community. The organization Emma nurtured for over a decade is growing strong, and we at PWM are so grateful and honoured to continue the legacy of her work.”

Further details about the next stage of Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal’s leadership will be announced in the coming weeks. A leadership search is currently scheduled for late spring-summer 2021. The Board of Directors is working together with Emma on a transition plan taking into account her current dramaturgical relationships at PWM, and providing for moments for her to return as a dramaturg in 2021-2022, and beyond. 

In the meantime, a huge thank you to Emma and the staff for their commitment to PWM, their accomplishments, and the growth we experienced under her leadership. She has all of our love to carry into the next chapter of her career.