Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre: Out of the Shadows
The Spring Festival of New Plays (Saskatoon) is one of the most central and oldest programs of the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre. Essentially, it is a week-long event which allows for the workshopping and public reading of 6 new Saskatchewan plays.
Of all the plays submitted in November, 6 are chosen by an outside reader, the Festival Dramaturg, reading blind. These plays then go though a program of one-on-ones and one-day workshops over the course of the winter with Festival and Centre dramaturgs.
The support of the Canada Council has allowed the Centre to extend the length of the Festival, without adding to the number of projects. Each main project was able to hire actors for six days instead of three, with a break in the middle of the six days for the playwright's writing, thinking and evaluation with their director and dramaturg. It also creates space for the more thorough evaluation with the director at the end of the project. Instead of having one public reading every night of the Festival, there is a reading every other night creating more space around each project.
Saskatchewan playwright Mansel Robinson is in a good position to assess the results of this initiative: “8 of my 9 produced plays were developed through the SPC. Trigger Happy was presented at the 2007 Spring Festival. With an extended workshop, the actors and director were able to dig deeper into the script. I was able to sit back and listen instead of immediately trying to “fix” a problem that may or may not actually exist. Also, the Centre requests that all the invitee directors attend the public readings of every play. In this way, word on a new writer or play gets put out into the wider world. And so I say without hesitation that the only way it is possible for me to be a working playwright in Saskatchewan is thanks to this organization.”