| Calling all fledgling theatre companies in Western Canada and the northern territories: come to Calgary this June and take part in a program to workshop one of your new plays.
Theatre Calgary’s Petro-Canada Play Advancement Series is a recently announced initiative that will see qualifying theatre groups spend one week in Calgary working with professional actors to develop a new full-length play. Those theatre companies will then return to their home communities, where they will be expected to stage the play sometime within the following year.
The series is being co-ordinated by new Theatre Calgary artistic associate Eric Rose, who says the program will challenge traditional methods of developing new works for Canadian theatre.
"In the theatre community, it seems plays have been rushed into production, or the opposite, (where) they have been stuck in the workshop process," says Rose.
He says this is not just a local issue, but one that affects theatre companies across the country. "The process tends to be playwright-centred," he says. "We want to take a playwright- and creative-centred approach."
In other words, the series is also open to plays created by untraditional methods. "All of the plays will go through a juried selection process on an equal footing," says Rose.
Theatre Calgary, which primarily produces theatrical classics, has not been associated with new-play development for many years. But Rose flatly rejects any suggestion that the theatre’s new series will be competing with the existing Calgary play development programs run by Lunchbox Theatre and Alberta Theatre Projects.
"The intention of the series is to provide development opportunities to western companies that do not have the same level of resources as Theatre Calgary," he says. "Unlike Alberta Theatre Projects’ Platform Plays, where the focus is to test out scripts to be fully developed in (the) playRites (festival) the following year, at Theatre Calgary our vested interest is in building relationships and forging connections with other artists and companies.
"We talked to Johanne Deleeuw (artistic director of Lunchbox Theatre) and Bob White (artistic director of ATP and co-director of the Banff playRites Colony). They were supportive of the idea," he adds. "We wanted to make sure we weren’t stepping on anyone’s toes."
Toes and creative egos aside, funding is also an important consideration for Calgary’s professional theatres, which often have to compete for the same slice of a diminishing pie. In addition to supporting Theatre Calgary’s new-play development program, Petro-Canada also continues to pay the bills for Lunchbox Theatre’s Stage One program, which marks its 17th annual season this April.
Petro-Canada community investment manager Hazel Gillespie says the energy company is fully committed to both play development programs.
"We did not displace Lunchbox," says Gillespie. "They continue to be our flagship program. We look to support developing Canadian talent in the live arts. We’re all in this together."
Companies that would like to be part of Theatre Calgary’s inaugural Petro-Canada Play Advancement Series should send a submission, including a completed draft of the new play to be developed, to Theatre Calgary by March 1. For full details contact Eric Rose at erose@theatrecalgary.com or call (403) 294-7440 ext. 1053. |
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