Details:
Saturday, January 28, 2012
7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
The Button Factory
25 Regina St. South
Waterloo, ON N2J 1R8

Admission:
Pay What You Can. Suggested donation $10.
Seating is limited. First-come, first served.

About the Play
Betrayal, trickery and embalming fluid are no laughing matter, unless you’re playwright Vern Thiessen. He turned the true-life story of two scientists charged with keeping Lenin’s corpse preserved forever into the crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed play Lenin’s Embalmers. Described in the New York Times as “a spunky dark comedy with wit and verve,” Lenin’s Embalmers earned Theissen rave reviews and a Governor General’s Award nomination.

About the Author
Thiessen, who is based in both New York and Canada, won the Governor General’s Award in 2003 for Einstein’s Gift. His play Shakespeare’s Will played to sold-out houses at the Stratford Festival last summer and has been produced in Germany, Wales, Italy and the United States. Vimy received rave reviews at the Blyth Festival and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa last year. Thiessen will be in Waterloo workshopping his latest play, Do Not Disturb, with Pat the Dog Playwright Centre. This new play, a saucy farce, will see its world premiere in August at Theatre Collingwood.

This project is made possible in part by the generous support of Canada Council.

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 accompanied by food and the launch of a visual arts installation in the historic Button Factory. Attendees to the
November 16 session will be the first to see Gareth Lichty’s newest creation.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Gods and Calvin Brewer by Jessica Anderson, who won 3rd place in 2010 24-Hour Playwriting contest.
Ancient gods and Greek food make for a classic-themed start to the series.

Wednesday February 8, 2012

Neighbours by Allie Bell, winner of the 2011 24-Hour Playwriting contest.

Wednesday March 7, 2012

First Dance by Trevor Copp. Two gay men set about creating a dance for a ritual that has no history. Wedding
cake will accompany this intriguing physical movement piece.

Wednesday April 11, 2012

The Barrel Project – a collective piece that answers the question, “Whatever happened to all those
Seagram barrels?” Whisky-soaked food accompanies this multi-media event.

For all piece/meal sessions

Admission:

Seating is limited, so reservations are required. Book your ticket through the Button Factory 519-886-4577.

This project is made possible in part by the generous support of the Kitchener-Waterloo Community Foundation.

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,” says Lisa O’Connell, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre’s Artistic Director.

But we have our winners:

• Grand Prize: Allie Bell of Toronto for Neighbours
• Second Place: Cody Sears of Toronto for How Soon we Fall
• Third Place: Evan Bawtinheimer of St. Catharines for The Volcanic Bomb
• Honourable Mention: Monica Fuentes of Burlington for The Inconsolible Blueness of Jeans

Wendy Philpott, one of the contest’s judges describes the winning play. “Through language and character this play achieves a sense of familiarity by alluding to the current issues of national security, extraordinary rendition and interrogation. Full of light and dark – it’s both ridiculous and serious.”

As our Grand Prize winner, Bell receives:

• $500
• A public staged reading
• A playwright Q&A published on our site

Sears and Bawtinheimer will also receive a reading.

Congratulations to our winners and everyone who took part. We know how gruelling this challenge can be.

Lisa O'Connell, Isabel Cisterna, Heather Franklin celebrate all things possible.

Missed the Possibility Party? Thanks to the miracles of the digital age, you can still attend. The WCAC blog posted six, count ‘em six, short videos from our big bash. While the cake is long gone, you can recapture the fun through a general recap and catch some of the acts:

• Ballroom dancers Trevor Copp and Jeff Fox cut a rug performing an excerpt from their upcoming production of First Dance
• Nafoyo and her guitar hit some high notes
• Richard Garvey sings and swings with six strings
• Heather Majaury wrestles with Pocahontas in an excerpt from her upcoming IMPACT11 production, This is My Drum
• Juan David and Gary Sharpe jam on keyboard and guitar

Thanks to all who made this Possibility Party a success and to WCAC for sharing the joy.

To celebrate all cultural movements in the Waterloo Region, Pat the Dog is teaming up with our other Button Factory partners — Neruda Productions and the Waterloo Community Arts Centre (WCAC) and throwing a Possibility Party.

There’ll be live music, food and fun. Whether you’re blocked or bursting with ideas, a technical geek or an art lover, you’re invited.

Thursday, June 23, 2010
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
The Button Factory
25 Regina Street, South
Waterloo, ON

Care to join the fun? Please RSVP via our Facebook page. Don’t do social media? Just show up. After all, for this event, anything’s possible.

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 of our judges, calls Receiver of Wreck intriguing and says, “The language and staging potential is original, figurative and full of interesting allusion. It’s rough, but that bodes well for truly being a product of a 24-hour writing binge.”

The competition was stiff and the decision wasn’t easy. “The quality of submissions this year is stellar,” says Lisa O’Connell, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre’s Artistic Director. “It was truly to difficult to pick a winner.”

For his efforts Heiti wins:

• $500
• A public staged reading
• A playwright Q&A published on our site

Tsitsias and Anderson will also receive a reading.

Photo © amandabhslater. Published under a Creative Commons License.

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 unleashing their creativity through story telling at the Art Gallery of Windsor. The goal? To create a 15-minute play in 60 minutes.

The time restriction didn’t limit their creativity. Reisman says, “One workshop had two sisters going into grades three and five. Within an hour, they had formed numerous characters (The Boneless Bunny, Super Sombrero and the Banishing Bride, just to name a few) and created a musical, even incorporating original songs.”

Molly Reisman is currently studying acting at Ryerson University. She graduated from Canterbury High School of the performing arts in Ottawa, where she has performed and produced numerous musicals and plays as well as seen one of her own original works mounted at an Ottawa Children’s Theatre Festival. She hopes to continue to work in this field, bringing creativity and energy to all future projects.

Molly says: Bringing the 15/60 Workshop to the Windsor Fringe was a very exciting experience. We did roughly two workshops a day, and each workshop was a unique process. What a great way for children to unleash their creativity.

Kevin White is a recent graduate from the Theatre Performance program at Humber College. He is currently developing a puppet show. In 2011/2012 he will be travelling across Ontario to perform Enoch Arden with Italian concert pianist Mauro Bertoli. Kevin is also a writer and cartoonist.

Kevin says: The Windsor Fringe Festival was a great time. Between seeing shows every night and during the day, helping kids come up with bizarre and often very funny characters, from a very enthusiastic amusement park owner who had no one to visit the lone ride at his park to the villainous and musical “Boneless Bunny”, I had a fantastic week.

There’s lots to celebrate. Last week, not only did Pat the Dog Playwright Center sign on our 100th member, we won the Gowlings Literary Award at the 22nd Annual K-W Arts Awards on June 6th. Being first-time nominees, we were taken by surprise.

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 at Pat the Dog Playwright Centre.  Come taste our spicy, innovative, invigorating new work served up with a soupcon of style, brioche and caffeine.

piece/meal takes place at:

The Artery
158 King Street West
Kitchener, ON (click here for the Google Map)
June 14, 15, 16, 2010
11 AM – 1 PM

Admission is free to Magnetic North Theatre Festival Industry Series participants.  For everyone else, it’s PWYC with a suggested donation of $15. Brunch is included on a first-come, first-served basis so arrive early.

For more than a decade, a pyramid of Seagram’s barrels sat at the corner of Erb and Caroline Street in downtown Waterloo. In August 2009, the landmark barrels went up for grabs. Within hours, the kegs had found new homes but left many questions. What happened to them? Where did they go? Who are the new owners?

While the wooden slats and metal rings may be scattered all over the county, their memory remains rooted in the local community.

Over the next few months, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre will gather stories, take pictures and cooper a play about these historic kegs. The results? The Barrel Project: A multi-media collective theatre piece for the entire community.

But we can’t do it alone. If you own or owned one (or more) of the authentic Seagram barrels, we’re looking for you.

Contact Charmian Christie using the form below and put BARREL PROJECT in the subject line, or phone us at 519-886-4577.

For more details see our Barrel Press Release.