Location: Shu Box (Riddell Centre, University of Regina)

• Jonathan Seinen, Arthur Milner, Weyburn 1959

We would like to present a workshop staging/reading of Arthur Milner’s new play Weyburn 1959, set at the Weyburn Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan when it was world centre for research into the use of LSD in the treatment of mental illness. I am serving as director and dramaturg.
The play dramatizes a transformational night in the lives of the researchers, when they all ingest LSD and embark on a journey into the interior space of a psychedelic journey. Before and after this trip, they discuss the challenges of treating mental illness, the values of public health care, and how to integrate these substances into a Western medical environment. While this period of study was arrested by the banning of psychedelic drug use in the 1960s, this historical period in Saskatchewan’s past offers guidance for our own era’s Psychedelic Renaissance. 
Exploring this unique period of our own past, this project will see playwright, director, and a company of six actors investigate the text during a series of ‘open rehearsals’ during the conference, concluding with a performance of the script-in-development followed by a conversation with the playwright, Arthur Milner. We anticipate that holding this space of an ‘open rehearsal’ workshop activates the subtext of the conference, ‘Staging the Liminal’, by doing just this – staging the in-between of new script and full production – offering a glimpse into new play development in contemporary Canada.
Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, this workshop will continue the development seen throughout the 2024/2025 season, including a reading in Saskatoon at Persephone Theatre hosted by Sum Theatre and one at the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina. This project requires limited technical support by embracing the workshop nature of our proposal.

Biography

Jonathan Seinen

Jonathan Seinen is a theatre director, actor, creator, producer, and scholar. Directing credits: Boys In Chairs Collective’s Access Me (Dora Award for Outstanding Direction), Governor General’s Award Nominee Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) by Jeff Ho (Theatre Passe Muraille), and Black Boys (Buddies In Times Theatre). Jonathan was awarded the 2020 John Hirsch Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of Regina.