Discovering & Building Drama from True Stories: A Workshop with Sally Stubbs

Discovering & Building Drama from True Stories: A Workshop with Sally Stubbs

Registration $50 (early bird $30, paid by April 28/13)

LSPU Hall, Cox & Palmer Second Space

To register: whiteroostertheatre@rocketmail.com

Limited spaces available.

Introduction

A non-fiction event or story is a treasure-trove of multiple truths waiting to be mined by dramatists with diverse perspectives, interests, and intentions.  How and where do you begin to build a drama from a complex and true event?   What strand or strands of a multi-pronged story do you choose to research and mine?  What elements do you bypass and/or carve away?

Intent

To introduce participants to a proven and efficient process of unpacking and building upon research materials to inform and shape research-inspired plays.

Process

We’ll begin with a brief introduction to research-inspired theatre, i.e., ‘what’ and ‘why’, before digging into ‘how’ via writing activities I adapted from an inspiring week-long Master Class led by Newfoundland’s Robert Chafe and administered by Playwrights Workshop Montreal.  Participants will need pencils or pens and something to write on and/or a laptop.  They may choose to work on their own research-inspired stories or a ‘commission’ that they will receive during the workshop.

Sally thanks Robert Chafe as well as Beverley Cooper and Tara Goldstein who, with Sally, co-developed and presented the seminar – Canadian Research-Inspired Theatre: What, Why, How – at the Women Playwrights Conference in Stockholm, Sweden last August.

BIO

Sally Stubbs is a Vancouver based playwright and educator who also directs and performs.  She holds graduate degrees in Writing and History in Art, works as a sessional instructor of playwriting and theatre in education, and has been a playwright-in-residence at the Firehall Arts Centre, Touchstone Theatre, the Playwrights Theatre Centre Colony, and the University of Lethbridge.  Sally is also a recipient of a Prime Minister’s Award for her instructional work with young people, theatre, and film.

Her scripts have been described as fierce, bold, surprising, audaciously theatrical, and darkly humorous.  They include: Centurions; Herr Beckmann’s People (published by Scirocco Drama 2011); Wreckage (Scirocco Drama 2009); Spinning You Home (listed for publication, Scirocco Drama); She’ll to the Wars; and Home Movies.

Scripts in progress include Kid Gloves, (rewrites underway following November 2012 premiere at the Firehall Arts Centre; listed for publication by Scirocco Drama); Project Hermie, a commission from Green Thumb Theatre for Young People; and Lori & Colt, a new play about a teacher and her mad, bad love affair with a handgun.

Sally is a proud member and artistic associate of Vancouver’s Wet Ink Collective; Playwrights Theatre Centre; Playwrights Workshop Montreal; Theatre Communications Group; and the Playwrights Guild of Canada where she is Women’s Caucus Chair and edits the Women’s Caucus Newsletter.