zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz SASKATCHEWAN PLAYWRIGHTS CENTRE EZINE zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz In this issue: * SPC's 24-Hour Playwrighting Competition * Call for Submissions * Playwrights' Reading Series * Playwrights' Retreat * Member News * Your News Here * SPC Board Members zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz * SPC's 24-HOUR PLAYWRIGHTING COMPETITION * zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz The SPC 24 Hour Playwrighting Competition is in Regina this year, May 1 to 3, 2009. There are two Competition Categories: Student (highschool/university) and Open (everyone else). Registration is on a first come, first serve basis. For further info, please visit our website: www.saskplaywrights.ca or contact Sheila Angelstad, SPC Administrator at (306) 665-7707 or email: sk.playwrights@sasktel.net zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz WALKING FISH - DEADLINE EXTENDED OUR CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS HAS BEEN EXTENDED THROUGH JANUARY 30TH, 2009! UPINTHEAIR THEATRE presents The SEVENTH ANNUAL WALKING FISH FESTIVAL June 10 - 14, 2009 You now have plenty of time to finish that draft, write that cover letter, burn that script to disk or update those resumes. We at Walking Fish and Upintheair Theatre are pleased to be extending our call for script submissions, creation pieces and director applications through to the end of the month. Drop your package in the mail by Friday the 30 of January, and we'd be delighted to consider your work for the Seventh Annual Walking Fish Festival on Granville Island this summer! For more information, please visit: www.upintheairtheatre.com zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz SOLO COLLECTIVE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – Monologues from Emerging Playwrights SOLO COLLECTIVE, the award-winning Vancouver theatre company that produces original work by Western Canadian playwrights, in partnership with the PLAYHOUSE THEATRE COMPANY, invites you to enter the sixth-annual EMERGING PLAYWRIGHTS' COMPETITION. Five winning monologue scripts will be selected from contest entries, to be presented at SOLO FLIGHTS, our annual Emerging Writers' Showcase, in April 2009. The competition judges are Aaron Bushkowsky (co-Artistic Director of Solo Collective), Jan Derbyshire (playwright and dramaturg), and Xanthe Faulkner (Dramaturg Intern, Solo Collective). Every competition entrant will receive written feedback from two of the judges. Please submit your properly formatted monologue (see below) to: Solo Collective Theatre 3001 Woodland Drive Vancouver, BC V5N 3R3 Submission Requirements: ? typed double-spaced ? pages numbered ? a title page with your name and contact info (including email address) – do NOT put your name on each page ? max. length 2500 words (monologues longer than this will not be considered) ? $20 Submission fee plus $5 membership fee if you are not already a member of Solo Collective (cheques only, made out to Solo Collective Theatre Society) ? We are looking at monologues that are one-person shows, or ones that can be developed into one-person shows (please DO NOT just send excerpts of monologues from multi-character full-length plays) Deadline is February 16, 2008. Five winners will be announced on March 24th, and will receive: ? written feedback from two dramaturges ? a two-hour workshop with a professional actor and a dramaturge ? a public reading by professional actors at SOLO FLIGHTS, our Emerging Writers' Showcase, at the Playhouse Theatre Co. Production Centre ? a profile on Solo Collective's web site, and other promotion through Solo Collective and the Playhouse associated with the showcase event Please note that winning playwrights must provide their own travel and accommodation costs if they need to travel to Vancouver. Being selected as a winner of this Emerging Playwrights' Competition does not guarantee a production. For more information, visit our web site at www.solocollective.ca or contact Solo Collective by e-mail: info@solocollective.ca. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz JEUX DU CANADA GAMES Call for young artists! From August 14th to 29th, 2009, Prince Edward Island will host the Jeux du Canada Games. Once again, the games will include a cultural component called the National Artist Program. Each province/territory is invited to select three artists ages 16 to 22 to participate in a variety of cultural activities. Artists will live in the athletes’ village, and travel and other expenses are covered. The program is open to young artists in all disciplines: dance, drama, creative writing, music, media arts, visual art and multidisciplinary arts. The Saskatchewan Arts Board is partnering with the games committee to invite applications and select the artists though a peer jury process. THE DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS IS FRIDAY, FEB. 6. An application form and information sheet are available on the Arts Board website: www.artsboard.sk.ca, and on the games website at www.teamsask.ca/nap.html. For further information, please contact Dianne Warren Arts and Learning Consultant Saskatchewan Arts Board 306-787-4659 dianne@artsboard.sk.ca. This is a great opportunity for young artists from Saskatchewan. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz * PLAYWRIGHTS READING SERIES * zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz The PLAYWRIGHTS' READING SERIES 2008 - 2009 Hosted by the DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE, UNIVERSITY OF REGINA In partnership with the SASKATCHEWAN WRITERS GUILD With the Assistance of the PLAYWRIGHTS GUILD OF CANADA and the CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS Featured playwright - Leanna Brodie On February 2, 2009 at 8:00PM in the Shu-Box Theatre, Riddell Centre, Leanna Brodie will be reading from her dramatic work. Leanna Brodie is a writer, translator and actor. This reading is open to the public free of charge. For more information contact Mary Blackstone at 585-5517. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz PLAYWRIGHT'S RETREAT with Vern Thiessen June 15-28, 2009 on the Tuscan coast for experienced playwrights Rediscover what your work is about and how to take it to the world! The 2009 Playwrights Retreat offers professional and emerging writers two weeks on the Tuscan coast with award-winning playwright Vern Thiessen. Besides having plenty of time to write, rest and reconnect with your work, you will enjoy planned excursions to some of the most wondrous places in Italy. Group meals and outings will give you the opportunity to network with colleagues as well as experience a bit of la bella vita -- the beautiful life in which we slow down and take time to enjoy a place, its food, its art... and each other. Writers will establish with Mr. Thiessen their own schedule of one-on-one sessions. These meetings, typically every other day, are an open forum for whatever you need to discuss. Project-specific editing, dramaturgy, writing exercises, and group readings are available to you. Group sessions led by Mr. Thiessen will cover marketing strategies and career planning. Who this program is for: Professional and emerging playwrights whose work has been produced. Application deadline: February 15, 2009. If your work is not known to Mr. Thiessen, please provide a writing sample of up to 15 pages with your application. FEES Participant: $2,250 (shared apartment with private bedroom) Companion: $800 (sharing room; not a retreat participant) www.labellavitaarts.com zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz * MEMBER NEWS * zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz SPC MEMBER - KEN WILLIAMS Ken recently won the fully committed category of the 10 Days of Madness 24-hour playwriting competition in Edmonton on January 10th. The festival was sponsored and organized by the University of Alberta Bookstore. The prize was a four-day workshop and staged reading on January 16th, plus a future workshop in June. He wrote a speculative fiction play called Deserters, about young female conscripts trying to escape a war that just won't end. Ken will be in Toronto for the Weesageechak Begin's to Dance festival of new plays in February. I will be workshopping another new play, Gordon Winter, with Lorne Cardinal, about a prominent First Nations leader who goes on a very public racist rant. If that ain't enough, he's now deep into draft two of a play that was commissioned by Gwaadak Theatre in Whitehorse, called Cafe Daughter, about a young Cree-Chinese girl growing up in 1950s Saskatchewan. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz SPC MEMBER - MADELEINE DAHLEM "sTain" by Madeleine Blais-Dahlem is closing the Groundswell Festival of New Plays by Women sponsored by Nightwood Theatre on January 31st, 2009 at 8 pm in the Upper Berkely Street Theatre in Toronto. Tickets are pay with you can, suggested 10$. Françoise is a pioneer housewife who, devasted by her enforced solitude in 1920s rural Saskatchewan, seeks a mystical relationship with the Blessed Virgin. The play begins as her husband seeks to have her permanently committed to the mental hospital in Battleford. Madeleine was a participant in the 2008 SPC Spring Festival with Old Farts. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz SPC MEMBER - CHERYL JACK BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! RAINBOW THEATRE DOUBLE BILL SPECIAL SCREENING: OUT IN THE COLD and HOOKERS: A DOCUMENTARY Dates: Friday, January 23 & Saturday, January 24 Times: 2:00, 4:00, 7:00, 9:30 and midnight each day Admission: $4.00 evenint and $2.00 matinee screenings The Rainbow Theatre is located in the Golden Mile Shopping Centre, at 3806 Albert Street in Regina. * HOOKERS: A DOCUMENTARY 53 minutes, documentary, 2008 Directed by Marcel Petit (Saskatoon) -- A story of hope and survival. OUT IN THE COLD 30 minutes, drama, 2008 Directed by Colleen Murphy Written by Cheryl Jack Cinematography by Ivan Gekoff, CSC Produced and edited by Sarah Abbott Starring Gordon Tootoosis, Erroll Kinistino and Mathew Strongeagle -- On a night so cold it hurts to breathe, three First Nations men find themselves abandoned on the outskirts of town. "Wonderfully written by Cheryl Jack... Out In The Cold was one of the best films I have seen this year." - Mike Gosselin, Eagle Feather News zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz *YOUR NEWS HERE* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Share your latest triumph with your fellow SPC members! Spread your name and fame across every aspect of the SPC Communications Empire - the SPC newsletter, website, discussion group, and Ezine. If you have events, workshops, articles, calls for submissions for inclusion in SPC publications, put all the details into an email and send them to jshebelska@sasktel.net. *Please note - I am trying to limit the scope of the ezine to information regarding playwrighting. There are other organizations to promote screenwriting, poetry, and other literary pursuits* WE NEED YOUR CURRENT CONTACT INFO! If you have a new email or street address, let us know. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz *2008 BOARD AND STAFF* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz President: CHERYL JACK cheryljack@sasktel.net Vice-President: JAMIE LEE SHEBELSKI jshebelska@sasktel.net Past President: WILL BROOKS williamallenbrooks@yahoo.ca Members-at-large: PAM HAIG-BARTLEY pamela.haigbartley@usask.ca JAMES TRETTWER wormwer@yahoo.com JAMIE LEE SHEBELSKI jshebelska@sasktel.net ROB VAN MEENEN getnthevanmeemen@sasktel.net MIKE THOMPSON GILLIAN HARDING-RUSSELL russell@accesscomm.ca IAN MCWILLIAMS Staff: Heather Inglis (Dramaturg) hdi1@telus.net Sheila Angelstad (Administrator) sk.playwrights@sasktel.net SPC Phone Number: (306) 665-7707 SPC fax number: (306) 244-0255 Mailing address: PO Box 3092 Saskatoon, SK S7K 3S9 email: sk.playwrights@sasktel.net on the web: www.saskplaywrights.ca