All Welcome to Playwrights’ Colony Evening of Readings

parc Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC) invites one and all to an Evening of Readings of new works from playwrights participating in the PARC Playwrights’ Colony, on Wednesday, May 15 at 7:30 pm at The Captain George Anderson Octagonal House (27 Queens Rd, Sackville NB).

This event is open to the public, and all are welcome to get a taste of new Canadian plays being written by playwrights from diverse backgrounds throughout the Atlantic region. Admission is free, but donations to PARC are most welcome and accepted at the door. Light refreshments will be provided.

The Evening of Readings will be held in the middle of the 2013 PARC Playwrights’ Colony (running May 5 – 18 on Mount Allison University’s campus in Sackville, NB) as the only public event for the writers on retreat. The Colony offers the most intensive writing opportunity for playwrights in this region, and provides a company of professional dramaturges and actors to work with the playwrights in developing the new scripts. For the first week the playwrights write and work in consultation with the dramaturges, and in the second, a company of actors workshop the pieces.

The participants in the 2013 Colony include:

  •  Playwright Kristen Slaney (NS), Halifax’s 2b theatre’s 2013 Emerging Artist-in-Residence and will be appearing in Ship’s Company’s Diligent River Daughter July 2013
  • Playwright Wesley Colford (NS/ON), born in Sydney, NS, is a graduate of Sheridan College and George Brown Theatre School in Toronto
  • Playwright Andrea Boyd (NB/QC), won honourable mention in the Alberta Playwrighting Competition for her play Angel’s River, which premiered at Live Bait Theatre in Sackville
  • Playwright Don Hannah (NB/NS/ON), winner of the inaugural Carol Bolt Playwrights Award from Playwrights Guild of Canada in 2012, for his play The Cave Painter
  • Playwright Lee-Anne Poole (NS), recipient of the 2012 Mayors Award for Emerging Theatre Artist in Halifax
  • Playwright GaRRy Williams (NS), founding Artistic Director of Halifax’s DaPoPo Theatre
  • Playwright Michael McPhee (NS), co-founder of Halifax theatre company The Doppler Effect
  • Playwright Kathleen Hamilton (PEI), founding member of Beyond the Bridge theatre collective and Playwrights on PEI
  • Playwright Griffin McInnes (NS), winner of the Norma Epstein National Creative Writing Contest and second-place winner of the Atlantic Writing Competition for his play Dead in Wawa
  • Dramaturge Sara Tilley (NL), founder of She Said Yes! Theatre Company in St. John’s, Newfoundland
  • Dramaturge Kim McCaw, Artistic Director of CCTC and Professor of Drama at the University of Alberta
  • Apprentice Dramaturge Sarah Higgins
  • Actors Rob Maclean and Melissa Mullen (PEI), Deb Allen (NS) and Jacob Martin (NB)
  • PARC’s Artistic Director, Jenny Munday and J.E.A. Crake Student Intern Gregory McLaughlin, assisting AD in running this year’s program

PARC has hosted its annual Playwrights’ Colony on Mount Allison’s campus in Sackville, the cultural crossroads of Atlantic Canada, since 2007 when the University donated space to PARC for a Library of Atlantic Canadian Scripts and a New Brunswick base for the organization. PARC is happy to again be offering the two-week Colony experience this year which includes the public, free Evening of Readings event on May 15, starting at 7:30 pm at the Anderson Octagonal House (27 Queens Rd, Sackville NB).