Playwright Jeremy Park has won the Discovery Prize two years in a row.

Jeremy Park, 26, is still hesitant to call himself a playwright, even after winning the Discovery Prize not once, but twice, in the Alberta Playwriting Competition. The prize is for playwrights who haven’t had a professional production of their work.

“After the first time I won the prize, I thought, ‘It (writing a play) was a big achievement, but I didn’t know if I could do it again,’” says Park of his 2009 win for Keeping Your Distance. “Now, after this second win, I know I can write plays more consistently into the future, so I’m feeling a bit more comfortable calling myself a playwright… but a new one, with much to learn,” he says.

Playwriting is a natural evolution for Park. He’s been writing stories and poems since he was young, but his writing shifted when he attended Mount Royal College (now University) and the University of Lethbridge to study theatre. As an actor, he has performed with Mob Hit Productions and in Sage Theatre’s Ignite! Festival.

“I always had a lot of plays I’d started. Then, last year, when I submitted Keeping Your Distance, I set myself down to completing a whole play,” says Park, adding that finishing a piece is one of the most difficult aspects of the job.

“I find it very easy to start something, but building it into something cohesive and barrelling through the roadblocks, that’s the challenge,” he says.

Keeping Your Distance tells the story of David, whose wife Sara is ill and suffering from memory loss. “It’s about how relationships are built of memories, and when those memories start to go, how that jeopardizes one’s own identity,” says Park.

Park’s second play, Barren Beasts, won this year’s Discovery Prize in May. Barren Beasts focuses on Cory, who turns to his estranged sister for help when he’s faced with kidney failure. Park researched renal failure to write it, including watching video blogs of people who were undergoing treatment. “The video blogs are like self-made documentaries and are a good primary source to draw from when creating characters,” says Park.

His main focus in playwriting is developing characters and their relationships. “I think that comes from being an actor. I enjoy creating characters that other actors would enjoy playing,” he says, adding that he doesn’t like to create bad guys or good guys, preferring to write plays in which “everybody has a chance to be sympathetic.”

The ideas for his writing come from a variety of sources: stories people tell him (as was the case with Barren Beasts), things he reads about, or just scenes that spontaneously appear in his head.

Park also looks to other Alberta playwrights for inspiration, including Vern Thiessen and Stephen Massicotte. “We’re essentially starting out from the same place, so I have an interest in their career paths as much as their body of work,” he says.

Currently, Park’s day job is stocking coffee in a downtown office building, an occupation he says “gives me a lot of time to think about ideas and write scenarios in my head before I write them on paper.”

Park’s next step is to explore the professional development side of playwriting and find a company to produce one of his plays. “Like all playwrights, I’d like to see the words onstage, being acted out in a production,” he says.

Right now, Alberta Playwrights’ Network is organizing a public reading for Barren Beasts. There will be no PlayWorks Ink this year, which usually serves as the venue for staged readings of winners’ works. In the meantime, Park is doing a couple of reworks on the script, and he’s sent Keeping Your Distance out to a couple of theatre companies.

“It’s a bit of a waiting game at this point,” says Park, adding that his wins have given “a sort of clout” to his work.

“I don’t have a solid answer on how to break into the professional world,” he admits. “Having a play that clicks into a theatre company’s mandate is part of it, and I’ve heard it’s good to produce your own work, but these are things I have yet to experience.” To that end, he’s planning a fringe festival project for next year that he will self-produce and perform.

Park says the most important thing he gained from winning the Discovery Prize two years in row, which comes with a $1,500 prize, is a sense of validation. “I have felt a lot of empowerment from being able to write plays, and the prize reaffirms that the stories I’m writing are stories people want to hear and respond too. I find that the most validating part.”