Piece/Meal: Neighbours
This month, Cheeses Murphy brings his fabulous flying panini press to Piece/Meal. Munch on hot grilled cheese while you enjoy an intriguing reading from the script that won our 2011 24-Hour Playwriting Contest. Neighbours by Allie Bell is a thought-provoking absurdist comic-drama. Plucking stories from the headline, it explores contemporary issues of sedition, homeland security and [...]
Vern Thiessen: Live and Up Close
In January, award-winning playwright Vern Thiessen will be making a special appearance in Waterloo. He’ll be reading from his play Lenin’s Embalmers in the intimate setting of The Button Factory. This is an unique opportunity to meet one of Canada’s most successful and widely-produced playwrights and hear him read from his own work. Theatre lovers, playwrights [...]
Piece/Meal Reading Series: Fresh, New Plays Served HOT
Pat the Dog Playwright Centre continues its popular piece/meal reading series with an exciting, expanded version. We’ll be serving up a light meal and four new, full-length theatre pieces — all of which originated from our playwright centre. The smorgasbord of plays includes a mix of works from playwrights across the province and is [...]
2011 24-Hour Playwriting Contest Results
Armed with only a page of notes, a computer and their imaginations, playwrights from across Ontario spent 24 non-stop hours this past weekend fighting off sleep and pounding out an original play. The third annual competition proved to be the most challenging yet. “The breadth of submissions was impressive, which made our job very difficult,” [...]
Culture Days
They’re writing in coffee shops, on the bus, in the park — and they’ve been doing it for 23 hours straight. Join Pat the Dog Playwright Centre’s Artistic Director Lisa O’Connell as we wind down the last hour of our Annual 24-Hour Playwriting Contest. How do they do it? Why do they do it? How [...]
2011 24-Hour Playwriting Contest
Stock up on coffee and dust off your lucky mug. Pat the Dog Playwright Centre is thrilled to announce we are hosting our third annual 24-hour playwriting contest. This means 30 adrenaline-pumped writers from across Ontario will be hitting the keyboards from 4:00 PM on Friday, September 30, 2011 to 4:00 PM Saturday, October 1, 2010. All [...]
Workshop: Matthew Heiti on Receiver of Wreck
In October 2010, Matthew Heiti took part in Pat the Dog Playwright Centre’s 24-Hour Playwriting Contest. Along with a strict deadline, all participants were challenged to include the words, “button”, “peach” and “skin”. Heiti must work well under pressure. Not only did his 24-hour script, Receiver of Wreck, win our contest, his play, I Drag My Coffin Through [...]
Possibility Party
Waterloo Region is bursting with possibilities and not just within our world-renowned tech sector. Proving size doesn’t matter, the small but influential Pat the Dog Playwright Centre recently received a grant under the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Province-Wide Program — the first Waterloo Region Arts centre to do so since 2004. To celebrate all cultural movements [...]
Predella Open Studio – April 18
Monday, April 18, 2011 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM The Button Factory Admission: Free. Everyone is welcome. The week at Predella Open Studio, we’re focusing on individual projects in progress. If you have a project you’re working on, or would like to start bring it along. From strategies to bust through blocks or build specific [...]
Predella Open Studio – April 4
Monday, April 4, 2011 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM The Button Factory Admission: Free. Everyone is welcome. This week, Predella Open Studio we’re putting our pencils to paper with design in mind. We’ll be looking at ways to make you look good, whether you’re updating your business card, creating a poster, or putting together your [...]
Predella Open Studio – March 21
Monday, March 21, 2011 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM The Button Factory Admission: Free. Everyone is welcome. This week we’re getting messy at Predella Open Studio. Working in small groups, we’ll be spending the whole session writing and playing. Please join us as we explore the possibilities. Not sure what it’s all about? Check out [...]
Predella Open Studio – March 7
Monday, February 21, 2011 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM The Button Factory Admission: Free. Everyone is welcome. This week Predella Open Studio experiments with improvisation. While actors and musicians use improvisation to develop their skills and instincts, writers also benefit from improv exercises. This week we pose the question: Are there more specific ways to [...]
Predella Open Studio — Success
Last Monday we launched the Predella Open Studio. We wondered if we would have a room full of playwrights, but people from a wide range of disciplines came to The Button Factory. Along with the expected writers, poets and playwrights, we had: visual artists photographers dancers engineers people from the tech community Regardless of [...]
Predella Open Studio – February 21
Monday, February 21, 2011 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM The Button Factory Admission: Free. Everyone is welcome. Predella Open Studio is not your average writing group. It’s built on new research about how people become high-performers in their fields and how groups can be structured to facilitate excellence. We’ll be kicking-off Predella Open Studio with [...]
Predella Open Studio
In addition to working intensively with a small group of writers, the Predella Project will offer bi-monthly Open Studio sessions starting in February 2011. These will be drop-in sessions run with all the rigour and energy of Predella’s intensive sessions. Not only will we share the tools developed through the Predella Project, these sessions will [...]
Workshop: Nine Rooms and The 10-Minute Play
The Nine Rooms Workshop Friday, November 26, 2010 (Note new date) 9:30 am – 3:30 pm The Button Factory 25 Regina St S Waterloo, ON N2J 1R8 A lot can happen in 10 minutes. Join Dominik Loncar, Artistic Director of the InspiraTO Festival, as he takes you through The Nine Rooms, a workshop designed to [...]
October Poetry Slam
Pat the Dog Playwright Centre and Metaverse are holding a Poetry Slam upstairs at the Button Factory. If you’ve got a poem, now’s your chance to perform in front of an eager audience. Bring your best verse and recite it, read it, or even sing it. Share without care at the open mike or put [...]
24-Hour Playwriting Contest Winner
After 24 non-top hours of typing, pacing, deleting and caffeinating, our participants are tired. But we have a winner. Congratulations to Matthew Heiti of Sudbury for Receiver of Wreck. Second place goes to Evan Tsitsias of Mississauga for Back, while J.E. Anderson of Ottawa placed third for The Gods and Calvin Brewer. Wendy Philpott, one [...]
Culture Days Metaverse Poetry SLAM!
Love poetry? As part of Culture Days, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre and Metaverse are holding a Poetry Slam at the Button Factory. You can participate or just listen. Got a poem or two? Bring your best and recite it, read it, or even sing it. You can share without care at the open mike [...]
15/60: Play in an Hour for Kids
How Pat the Dog Playwright Centre Spent Our Summer Non-Vacation The legacy from Spotlight 2009 lives on. Pat the Dog Playwright Centre’s 15/60 Play-in-an-Hour Workshop for kids was such a success we took it on the road. The year, as part of the International Windsor Fringe Festival, facilitators Kevin White and Molly Reisman had kids [...]
24-Hour Playwriting Contest 2010
We’re doing it again. Pat the Dog Playwright Centre will be hosting our second annual 24-Hour Playwriting Contest from 4:00 PM Friday, October 1st to 4:00 PM October 2nd, 2010. Fire up the computer, grab your lucky mug and jump into your pjs because this year all contestants write offsite. Hit the keys at home, [...]
piece/meal follow-up
Pat the Dog Playwright Centre’s piece/meal sessions played to full houses during the recent Magnetic North Theatre Festival. Our audience members aren’t the only ones to take notice. Four piece/meal scripts have made their way to theatre festivals in Toronto, Hamilton and Winnipeg. Aftershock by Evan Tsitsias is playing at Summerworks in Toronto from August [...]
Magnetic North and piece/meal schedule
Under Magnetic North Theatre Festival’s Magnetic Vibrations, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre is serving up brunch, magic and a excerpts from a total of eight new theatre pieces – all of which originated from our centre. It begins with Shawn DeSouza-Coelho as “The Man in the Window,” performing magic and conjuring the playful spirit that [...]
June Poetry SLAM!
You asked for it. You got it. Pat the Dog Playwright Centre is hosting another Poetry SLAM. Our April event brought more than 50 people to the top floor of the Button Factory, where they took to the stage, listened to original creations and munched on popcorn. [showtime] Eager to hear more? Got a poem [...]
