Playwrights Unit
Alberta Theatre Projects is soliciting pitches from Canadian playwrights for participation in the 2021/22 Playwrights Unit.
Alberta Theatre Projects is a Calgary-based, not-for-profit, professional theatre company that celebrates the art of live theatre. From its home in the Martha Cohen Theatre at Arts Commons, the company produces world-class theatre with a focus on story-driven new works, Canadian plays, and contemporary theatre from around the world.
Alberta Theatre Projects is a national leader in new play development and dramaturgy.
We are looking for contemporary stories that are happening now. Our audiences tell us that they are excited by provocative, edgy plays that examine the act of intersectionality that provide a visceral experience. We hope to develop plays that explore an onstage collision of diverging modern ideas, points of view, class, gender or cultural perspectives. The fallout from these visceral human encounters is explosive, surprising, funny and illuminating.
Calgary is a complex, cosmopolitan city with a history of boom and bust, lavish wealth and prolonged downturn. Situated on the traditional land of the Treaty 7 people, it is home to roughly 1.4 million people, 36% of whom identify as visible minorities. We are looking for stories that examine how people move through space together in this kind of modern, urban setting.
Our plays are produced in the Martha Cohen Theatre, an intimate Georgian-style auditorium with orchestra and two tiers of balcony seating. While at first glance a conventional setting, the theatre offers immense flexibility for multiple seating configurations and types of playing spaces. An important part of our ongoing mission is to create work that blurs the line between the artist and the audience. In the 2019/20 season (our last season prior to the COVID-19 pandemic), we produced plays in thrust, cabaret, and proscenium styles, with seating capacity ranging from 275 to 395 seats.
Please forward a one-page outline of a play for consideration by the end of day on July 8, 2021 to auditions@atplive.com and include a sample scene (maximum 10 pages) from one of your previous works.
In your outline, please also include the structure (i.e. one act or two), estimated running time, and number of characters and/or performers. At this time, the company is prioritizing plays that will be under two hours and have a maximum of six performers.
Shortlisted playwrights will be contacted and invited to discuss their pitch in a 30-minute Zoom session with a selection committee, led by Interim Artistic Director, Haysam Kadri. These sessions are scheduled to take place during the weeks of July 19 and 26, 2021.
Alberta Theatre Projects is committed to reflecting the diversity of our community. We believe in equity and inclusion and strongly encourage applications from all artists regardless of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, and experience.
Alberta Theatre Projects acknowledges that we gather and create on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot and the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, which includes the Siksika, the Piikuni, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina and the Stoney Nakoda First Nations, including Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nation. The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.
