Table Sessions
The Pat the Dog Playwright Centre’s Table Sessions are over for the summer. Need your performing arts fix? The region is bursting with creativity. Visit the Magnetic North Theatre Festival (and Pat the Dog’s piece/meal brunchtime reading series) is in town. And just down the road in Toronto there’s 10-minute plays at InspiratTO, lots of [...]
SLAM! ‘Box in A Button Poetry
Show us your stuff at our first-ever SLAM! Poetry Event. In recognition of National Poetry Month, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre is launching a monthly slam poetry event to spotlight local poets and artists, offer a community forum to explore next steps for the K-W poetry community as a whole, and provide an advocacy space [...]
Magnetic North Theatre Festival
Pat the Dog Playwright Centre is pleased to announce we’ve been chosen to present the playwright reading series for this year’s Magnetic North Theatre Festival. piece/meal is a brunch-time series providing an intimate, playful introduction to fresh new plays in development from intriguing new theatre artists. All excerpts are from full-length plays currently under development [...]
Introduction to Theatre of the Oppressed
Workshop: Introduction to Theatre of the Oppressed While actors will benefit immensely, actors are not the only people these techniques empower. This theatre training is for anyone seeking dynamic learning opportunities that will increase self awareness and confidence. This training de-mechanizes the body from repetitive and automatic action, liberates the mind from assumptive patterning, and [...]
Workshop: Johnny Trinh – Sometimes Y
Sometimes Y November 27 & 28, 2009 Setting: Downtown Toronto Sometimes Y is about two men in love, continually orbiting the same relationship, but rarely finding alignment. This story is a collection of memories that creates the universe in which the characters exist, how it was formed and how it unravels. What aspects of the [...]
Workshop: Evan Tsitsias – Strange Mary Strange
Strange Mary Strange November, 2009 The Button Factory Setting: Inside an airplane cabin. The piece explores a woman’s struggle to shake the ghosts and voices of her past as she struggles to move forward and allow herself a chance at happiness. What aspects of the play were you looking to explore during the workshop? I [...]
Upcoming Events: Table Session Schedule
Next Pat the Dog Table Session: Monday, May 31, 2010. These informal get-togethers are an opportunity to discuss your work, have sample scenes read and, if requested do some writing exercises to push through any pesky playwriting problem. Want something else? Just ask. Sessions run bimonthly from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM in the Board [...]
24-Hour Playwriting Contest Winners
Waterloo, we have a winner! Allowed only a page of notes, a computer and their imaginations, playwrights from across Ontario spent 24 non-stop hours drinking coffee and pounding out an original play. Some wrote from the comfort of their homes, while others brought their laptops to Kitchener City Hall and wrote in the rotunda. After [...]
24-Hour Playwriting Contest
Part of the IMPACT Festival Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Write a play in 24 hours with only one page of notes and no sleep. WHO: First 30 playwrights to enter. WHEN: 4:00 PM, Friday, September 25, 2009 until 4:00 PM Saturday, September 26th. WHERE: Kitchener City Hall or your home. It’s [...]
Workshop: Trevor Copp – Journey to the East
Trevor Copp’s adaptation of Herman Hesse’s novella, Journey to the East, was workshopped at the MT Space rehearsal hall. Using stone, sand, water and chalk with distilled movement, this physical theatre creator was able to push his strong images, thereby freeing up the text captured within. The result? Renewed focus and an energized clearer draft. [...]
Reading: Heather Debling – Munro and Sons
Munro and Sons May 11, 2009 The Button Factory Setting: Rural Southwestern Ontario A young woman leaves the city to stay with her aunts on the farm. Why did she leave? How long will she stay? This gentle play looks at how family patterns repeat themselves — for better or worse. As a new playwright, [...]
Reading: Douglas Campbell – Little Crickets
Little Crickets April 27, 2009 The Button Factory Setting: Post-Ceausescu Europe Two pre-teen refugees find themselves on the streets of Paris, trying to survive on their wits. This disturbingly comic story examines the ravages of war on children. This is the first time I’ve heard the completely new draft of Little Crickets read by actors. [...]
Workshop: Ken Cameron Playwriting
Pat the Dog was proud to host a skills workshop with Ken Cameron, the Artistic Director of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival and an award-winning playwright. Cameron, whose most recent work, Harvest, played at Blyth Festival last summer, conducted the workshop in support of Pat the Dog.
For an afternoon, Cameron and 24 playwrights from across Ontario took over the Council Chambers in Kitchener City Hall. They
