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Collider Festival

Artists > Play Development > Collider Festival

Collider is a new play development festival that celebrates and helps bring to life new stories and scripts for larger stages showcasing a mix of local artists and artists from across the country and beyond.

Donation

We are so excited to have you be a part of Collider! As this event is free to the public, we ask that you consider donating to the Citadel Theatre. Through your donation, you can ensure this new exciting festival always makes a home for new work on Edmonton stages.

DONATE

2022 Schedule


WEDNESDAY APRIL 6

KEYNOTE: Bob White

APRIL 6 2022 7:00 PM
RICE THEATRE

Join us for an overview of new play development over the last 50 years in Canada as well as a vision of where things are moving in the development of new Canadian work.

READING: The Tao Of The World

by Jovanni Sy
APRIL 6 2022 8:00 PM
RICE THEATRE

A Restoration Comedy for Modern Times! Inspired by Congreve’s celebrated Restoration comedy The Way of the World, this new romantic comedy is set in modern Crazy Rich Asians Singapore. After a global pandemic has kept everyone isolated for nearly two years, Asia’s wealthy elite try to make up for lost time by hatching schemes to bed other people’s partners and to swindle one another out of dynastic fortunes. The Tao of the World is a bawdy, rollicking romp that blends the spirit of Restoration comedy with the style of a modern Asian rom-com.


THURSDAY APRIL 7

PGC and Playwrights Mixer

APRIL 7 2022 5:30 PM
RICE THEATRE LOBBY

Join us to meet and mingle with playwrights, fellow artists and theatre lovers who are passionate about new play development. This is also a chance to check out our Pop-Up Theatre Bookstore which carries plays by many of the playwrights involved in Collider.

PANEL: A Multitude of Paths: Developing Large Scale New Work through an Institutional and an Independent lens

APRIL 7 2022 6:30 PM
RICE THEATRE LOBBY

Hosted by the Citadel’s Artistic Director Daryl Cloran, this one hour panel featuring Bob White, Amiel Gladstone, Mieko Ouchi and Rachel Peake explores the many winding paths a new Canadian play may take as it makes its way to a large scale production, both through the support and initiative of Institutions, but also with the leadership of an Independent artist or collective.

READING: Broadway Heist

by Arun Lakra
APRIL 7 2022 8:00 PM
RICE THEATRE

Broadway Heist: Is it a comedy or is it a heist? We’re in the audience, watching rehearsals for the World Premiere of an award-winning drama, Uncrossed, a reimagined Romeo and Juliet. Opening Night is only days away, but the lead actor (who thinks he’s the next George Clooney) can’t seem to learn his lines. And the Juliet is a Tony-winning calamity waiting to happen. The playwright is frustrated. The director is clueless. The set is a duct-tape disaster. The Stage Manager is barely holding things together. And we discover the show’s big shot Producer is… The Target. Of a Heist. Which will take place on Opening Night. What could go wrong?


SATURDAY APRIL 9

READING: The Time Machine

by Amiel Gladstone
Adapted from the novel by H. G. Wells
APRIL 9 2022 4:00 PM
RICE THEATRE

A bold contemporary adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel.  An eccentric dinner party featuring a Journalist, a Doctor, a Politician, a Spiritual Guru, and Military Colonel, is a lively a debate when the Traveller suggests they are on the brink of breathtaking new technology. When they find themselves suddenly 800,000 years in the future, where humans have split into two separate worlds, they are forced to question everything they thought they knew about reality.  An imaginative and theatrical update of a 19th century classic.   The Time Machine was originally commissioned by Concord Theatricals.


SUNDAY APRIL 10

WORKSHOP: "Don’t Let It End Like This, Tell Them I Said Something"

with Yvette Nolan
APRIL 10 2022 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
ZEIDLER HALL
Price: $75

What is the role of the artist in these times?  Is it true that “survival is insufficient”? Leap into a hands on two hour workshop with playwright, dramaturg and director Yvette Nolan. Bring your pens and papers, your laptops and tablets. And be prepared to write about what matters… to you, to your communities, to the world.

Sign up now!

READING: The Secret to Good Tea

by Rosanna Deerchild
APRIL 10 2022 4:00 PM
RICE THEATRE

So much happens over tea, Maggie says to her daughter Gwynn. At the kitchen table, they discuss Gwynn’s shaky marriage, Maggie’s lingering nightmares and a neighbour’s annoying streak at bingo. But they talk without saying much and old family hurts simmer. When Gwynn encourages her mother to return to the site of her residential school, frustration boils over. As a journalist, Gwynn wants her mom to share her story so the world will know what happened. But how can Maggie expose her trauma to a world that turned its back on her, when she can’t even talk to her own daughter?  Developed for the 2021 Pimootayowin Creators Circle, Rosanna Deerchild’s story of healing, forgiveness and hope has been a lifetime in the making.

READING: Alina

by Lianna Makuch
APRIL 10 2022 8:00 PM
RICE THEATRE

Alina is inspired by the true experiences of a 19-year-old volunteer Ukrainian combat medic who leaves everything behind to go to the front line of one of the deadliest battles of the war in Eastern Ukraine in 2015 — the battle for the Donetsk Airport. She then struggles as she’s thrust back to civilian life and must come to terms with her trauma. Interviews and research to develop this play took place as part of an artistic residency at IZOLYATSIA Cultural Platform with female veterans in Kyiv, Ukraine in 2020. Alina explores the female experience of living through contemporary war and the unspoken impacts on PTSD.

Co-presented by Script Salon


2022 Artists

Keynote Speaker: Bob White

Bob White is in his 14th season as a dramaturg at The Stratford Festival. This season sees him as production dramaturg on Jordi Mand’s adaptation of Little Women, Sunny Drake’s Every Little Nookie and Anne-Marie Macdonald’s Hamlet-911. He just recently stepped down from his position as Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program.  Among the more prominent plays he has helped shepherd to production at the Festival are Erin Shield’s Paradise Lost, Colleen Murphy’s The Breathing Hole and the Kate Hennig Queenmaker Trilogy: The Last Wife, The Virgin Trial and Mother’s Daughter. Prior engagements include Artistic Director at Alberta Theatre Projects (Calgary), Co-director of the Banff Playwrights Lab, Artistic Director, Factory Theatre, (Toronto) and Artistic Director, Playwrights Workshop Montreal.  Bob’s fifty years of service to the Canadian Theatre has been celebrated with numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate from The University of Calgary. Bob is also a Member of the Order of Canada.

Playwright: Jovanni Sy

Jovanni Sy is a Calgary-based playwright, director, and performer. He served as Artistic Director of Gateway Theatre (Vancouver) and of Cahoots Theatre (Toronto). He has collaborated with theatre companies across Canada and abroad.  Jovanni’s one-man play, A Taste of Empire, was nominated for two Dora Awards. It was subsequently translated into Cantonese and performed by Derek Chan. A Tagalog version (Lasa ng Imperyo) is being developed by Carmela Sison. Along with The Tao of the World, Jovanni is currently developing Kowloon Bay, a detective story set in 1911 Hong Kong with Vertigo Theatre. Jovanni is also developing Salesman in China (with co-writer Leanna Brodie) with the Stratford Festival.  Coming next: In May, Jovanni will play Mr. Miyagi in the pre-Broadway tryout of The Karate Kid, the Musical (book by Robert Mark Kamen; music and lyrics by Drew Gasparini; directed by Amon Miyamoto) in St. Louis. Next, Jovanni will direct the premiere of his play The Five Vengeances—a kung fu adaptation of The Revengers Tragedy—in Vancouver. Finally, Jovanni returns to Calgary to direct Murder on the Orient Express for Vertigo Theatre.

Writer/Composer: Joe Slabe

Joe Slabe is a writer and composer with a Masters Degree in musical theatre composition from Goldsmiths College of the University of London. He’s written seven book musicals, most notably Crossing Swords, which won five awards at the New York Musical Festival, including Best Book and the Theatre for the American Musical Prize, and The Urban Jungle Book, which was shortlisted for the Tom Hendry Awards and won the Calgary Critics’ Award in 2018.

Joe also works with other writers to create original musical theatre revues, including Alberta Kitchen Party, Touch Me: Songs for a (dis)Connected Age, (Calgary Critics’ Award for Best Musical), and eight editions of Naughty… but Nice! revues (Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding Musical). In addition to writing, Joe works extensively as a musical director, musical theatre dramaturg, and is the founding artistic director of Forte Musical Theatre. His last name rhymes with “The Bay”.

Playwright: Arun Lakra

Arun Lakra has three jobs. Writer. Doctor. Dad. He hoped one of them would be easy. (He was wrong.) His play Sequence won the Betty Mitchell Award, the Calgary Theatre Critics Award, the Joanne Woodward/Paul Newman Award, the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Drama Prize, and the Alberta Playwriting Competition Grand Prize. In addition to his work as a playwright, Arun has written a book on laser eye surgery, a supernatural thriller screenplay, a song to protest the demotion of Pluto (unsuccessful), and his share of illegible prescriptions. He has also written and directed an award-winning short film, Probability. Arun’s new play, Fortunato Heist, will have its World Premiere in Indiana in May. Clearly going through a Heisty phase (his therapist says it will pass), Arun is thrilled to be back at the Citadel working on Broadway Heist. Arun lives in Calgary, Alberta with his wife and two kids.

Playwright: Amiel Gladstone

As a West Coast playwright and director, Amiel Gladstone has worked all over the place in theatre and opera with companies such as Against the Grain, Alberta Theatre Projects, Arts Club, Banff Centre, Caravan Farm, the Cultch, Factory, Firehall, Musical Stage Co, the National Arts Centre, Pacific Opera Victoria, Rumble, Theatre SKAM, Solo Collective, Tarragon, Theatre Conspiracy, Theatre Replacement, Touchstone, Western Canada Theatre, Vancouver Opera, and Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre.

Playwright: Rosanna Deerchild

Rosanna Deerchild (she/her) is Cree, from the community of O-Pipon-Na-Piwan Cree Nation. She is a storyteller with more than 20 years experiences as a journalist, broadcaster and a poet. Most recently, she has been heard as the host of CBC Radio One’s Unreserved for six seasons. Currently, she is creating a podcast called This Place, which will focus on Indigenous history in Canada.  Her debut poetry collection, this is a small northern town, shared her reflections of growing up in a racially-divided place. It won the 2009 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry. Her second book, calling down the sky is a collaborative work with her mother who was forced to attend Indian Residential School. She also wrote her first play, The Secret to Good Tea, with Royal MTC’s Pimootayowin Creators Circle and is writing her third collection of poetry. The Secret to Good Tea will premiere at Royal MTC in March 2023.

Playwright: Lianna Makuch

Lianna Makuch (she/her) is a second-generation Ukrainian Canadian theatre artist. She is a performer, playwright, emerging director, and a graduate of the BFA Acting Program at the University of Alberta. Lianna is a producer with Punctuate! Theatre and the co-Artistic Producer of Pyretic Productions. She is the playwright and principal performer in Barvinok (Pyretic Productions in association with Punctuate! Theatre), which has garnered her awards and recognition from across the country and in Ukraine. The show will be touring Alberta in Fall 2022. She is also the 2020 REACH Grant recipient from the Shevchenko Foundation/Ihnatowycz Family Foundation, which is supporting her as she develops this story into a feature length screenplay. Through her artistic work, Lianna has found passion for activism. She believes that, especially in light of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, it is more important to be an artist and to use the artistic voice to evoke and encapsulate an empathetic human experience. Lianna is a founding member of Canadians in Support of Ukrainian Political Prisoners (CSUPP), and was an integral part of creating and circulating a petition calling upon the House of Commons to demand the release of Ukrainian political prisoners.  Lianna was the first Canadian artist-in-residence with the IZOLYATSIA Cultural Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine in 2020, where she began the development of Alina. She has continued developing the play as part of the Punctuate! Playwrights’ Unit. Alina will premiere in Edmonton May 26 – June 5, 2022 at the Studio Theatre at the Fringe Theatre Adventures, produced by Pyretic Productions in association with Punctuate! Theatre. www.pyreticproductions.ca

Playwright: Yvette Nolan

Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, director and dramaturg. Recent works include the play The Unplugging, the dance-opera Bearing, the libretto Shawnadithit, the short play-for-film Katharsis, and the audio plays Lâche Pas la Patate and You Can’t Get There From Here. She was one of the ten writers on Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show. She co-created, with Joel Bernbaum and Lancelot Knight, the verbatim play Reasonable Doubt, about relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan. Currently, she is working on Namwayut with Marion Newman and Ian Cusson and Parmela Attariwala, and on Sophia with Tim Brady. From 2003-2011, she served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto. Her book, Medicine Shows, about Indigenous performance in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy.

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