Winning Playwrights from four different provinces

OLT’s 75th National One-Ace Playwriting Competition

Media Release:  February 24, 2016

The winners of the Ottawa Little Theatre’s 75th National One-Act Playwriting Competition represent four different provinces across Canada. These winners join the list of Canadian literary luminaries who have won since the competition was first held in 1937 (from Robertson Davies to Governor General Drama Award double winner Catherine Banks.)

In the Plays Written for Adults Category, the first prize, the Ottawa Little Theatre Award, goes to Three Things by Peter Zednik of Vancouver, British Columbia.  A gay couple who have applied to adopt a child find their relationship complicated by an older woman who rents the garden suite in their home. “It’s impossible to not be drawn into this world,” says adjudicator Erica Kopyto.  With “surprising twists, big reveals, characters who are complicated and charming, this compelling piece fuses all the elements of what it means to write a good play.”

Second prize, the Dorothy White Award, goes to Always by Michaela Jeffery of Montreal, Quebec. “Mothers, daughters, attraction and danger combine in this piece with vivid language and terrific use of land and landscape to mine a central set of relationships” says adjudicator Brian Quirt about this look at a modern day family that lives off the grid.

 Third prize, the Gladys Cameron Watt Award, sponsored by the Ottawa Chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women, goes to Ron Fromstein of Toronto, Ontario, for his play Henry.  This play explores how one man faces a personal crisis. “A surprising and touching story,” says adjudicator Stephen Heatley.  “I held my breath reading it out of real concern for the character.”

The Sybil Cooke Award for a Play Written for Children or Young People goes to Eleanor Gabor also by Ron Fromstein of Toronto, Ontario. This is the first time in the history of the competition that one person has won two prizes in the same year.  This heartbreaking play examines a child’s first experience of death.  Adjudicator Brian Quirt says this is “A beautiful piece about youth, grief and memory by a strong and sharp playwriting voice.”

The adjudicators also made one Honorary Mention:  June Mountain Cloud’s Professor by J.J. Steinfeld of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, which looks at the complicated relationship between a Caucasian Professor of Aboriginal Studies and his aboriginal student.

This year 44 entries were submitted from seven different provinces.  Winners were chosen through a double blind adjudication contest, with all of the plays submitted under pen names.  The names of the adjudicators were also kept confidential until the winners were announced.

The three adjudicators who selected the winners for 2015 were Stephen Heatley, Head of the Department of Drama and Film at University of British Columbia; Erica Kopyto, Project Dramaturg with Nightwood Theatre in Toronto, and Brian Quirt, Artistic Director of Nightswimming in Toronto and Director of the Banff Centre Playwrights Colony in Alberta.

The winners will all be invited to Ottawa in April to work with a guest dramaturg along with directors and actors from OLT, to mount public readings of the winning plays.  These readings will be held on Saturday April 23, 2016, in Ottawa Little Theatre’s Janigan Studio.  Tickets go on sale for this special event on March 1.  Watch the OLT website at www.ottawalittletheatre.com for further details.

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Contact:  Lynn McGuigan, Executive Director, 613-233-8948 ext. 259 or lynn@ottawalittletheatre.com

 

 

ADJUDICATORS’ BIOS

Ottawa Little Theatre’s 75th National One-Act Playwriting Competition

Stephen Heatley has worked in professional theatre for over 40 years as a director, dramaturg, actor, playwright and teacher.  He holds a BA from Brock University, an MFA in directing from the University of Alberta and a diploma in Physical Theatre from the Canadian Mime School.  During his 12-years as Artistic Director of Theatre Network in Edmonton, he directed over 30 world premieres.  Stephen spent five years as Associate Artistic Director of the Citadel Theatre and five years as the resident director for the Free Will Players Outdoor Shakespeare productions in Edmonton. Stephen has been involved with new play development across Western Canada for thirty years.   He lives in Vancouver and is the Head of the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of British Columbia.  At UBC, he works with actors, directors and playwrights.  His production of the new musical, Heels of Glory, will be presented at the Chelsea Theatre in London, UK, this June.

Erica Kopyto is a Toronto-based theatre artist and the project dramaturg at Nightwood Theatre.  In her roles as dramaturg, curator, director, producer, activist and educator, she has dedicated her work to the intersection of social justice initiatives and the arts. She holds a Masters of Art from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Study of Drama and is a member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.  She is a long time board member of Mayworks’ Festival of Working People and the Arts and is a curator with Trampoline Hall.  Some favourite highlights are Jordi Mand’s Between The Sheets; Nightwood’s Groundswell Festival and most recently the workshop of Anusree Roy’s new piece in development, Trident Moon.

Brian Quirt is Artistic Director of Nightswimming, which has commissioned and developed more than 30 new plays, dance works and musical pieces since 1995, and Director of the Banff Centre Playwrights Colony. He recently directed national tours of these Nightswimming projects: Carmen Aguirre’s Blue Box, Anita Majumdar’s The Fish Eyes Trilogy and Same Same But Different. He has created and directed eight of his own plays, including his pop-up choral piece Why We Are Here! (with Martin Julien) presented at venues across Toronto last spring. He has been Interim Artistic Director of the Great Canadian Theatre Company, Company Dramaturg at Factory Theatre, Dramaturg at The Theatre Centre and Dramaturgical Associate at the Canadian Stage Company. He is the current Board Chair and a past-President of the Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas, and two-time recipient of LMDA’s Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy.