Location: Zoom Room A
Sponsored by the University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Fine Arts
Convenor: Annie Smith
Panelists: Katherine Koller, Conni Massing, Moira Day, Tracy Carroll, Anne Nothof, Jen Taylor
The Development and Ongoing Work of Edmonton’s Script Salon – The Shore Between the Work of Playwrights and the Production of Their Plays
Edmonton’s Script Salon is in its 9th year. This venture of presenting readings of plays, close to production-ready, by professional actors, to enthusiastic audiences for exposure and feedback has proven a winning formula leading to productions of more than 50% of the plays presented. Curator and founder Katherine Koller, also a playwright and author, likens the role of Script Salon to someone reaching a hand to a swimmer and pulling them out of the water onto the shore, where their creative work can find its feet. Script Salon follows in the footsteps of many Albertan script development projects over the decades, from the University of Alberta to CKUA, to ScriptLab, to the Springboards Festival, to Banff School of the Arts. The value of Script Salon and other play development programs across Canada begs more attention from theatre scholars.
Issues:
- Canada, in particular, provides opportunities for playwrights to workshop their plays around the table with actors but fewer opportunities to present plays-in-process to audiences. This is an important step for playwrights: to hear professional actors read, see how audiences and invited artistic directors respond to their work, and receive constructive feedback.
- Theatre audiences crave involvement in the creation of theatre; they are not passive viewers and can be part of the dramaturgical process
- Theatre scholars need to be paying attention to dramaturgy because knowledge of dramaturgical processes can enrich theatre scholarship and pedagogy
- Thanks to a growing interest in performance studies, contemporary theatre culture in Canada needs to move beyond the silos of traditional theatre structures to understand the inter-relationships and inter-dependencies of theatre creators and designers, theatre makers and technicians, audiences, performers, reviewers, and scholars
Goals:
- To introduce theatre scholars, practitioners, and students to the work of Edmonton’s
Script Salon – its history, goals, programs, partnerships, impacts, and vision for the future - Learning from the experiences of the Script Salon playwrights, directors, administrators
- Understanding how play development showcases dramaturgical processes that contribute to the culture of theatre in Canada
- Opening a door to an inclusive modality for creating and exploring theatre and performance – there is room on the shore for everyone
Annie Smith is a freelance theatre practitioner and scholar. Her research and teaching encompasses audience participatory performance, community-engaged arts, Indigenous theatre and performance and Canadian women playwrights. She has contributed reviews, articles, forums, and interviews to TRIC/RTAC, Canadian Theatre Review, SETC Journal, UofT Quarterly, alt.theatre and Performing Turtle Island: Indigenous Theatre on the World Stage.
Katherine Koller is the Script Salon Founder and Curator, Playwright, and Producer.
Conni Massing is a contributing Playwright to Edmonton’s Script Salon.
Moira Day is a scholar of Prairie theatre and editor of west-words: Celebrating Western Canadian Theatre and Playwriting, and a supporting audience member of Script Salon.
Tracy Carroll is a Director, Dramaturge, and former Co-Producer at Script Salon.
Anne Nothof is a Scholar of Alberta Theatre, the Editor of the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia, Plays Editor at NeWest Press and AUP.
Jen Taylor is the Managing Director of Alberta Playwrights Network.
