Theatre Calgary helps plays get from page to stage
LGBTQ2S+ community offered showcase to tell their stories at virtual festival
Last December, Calgary playwright, actor and musician Zach Running Coyote was appointed artistic associate at Theatre Calgary. One of his first assignments was to co-curate Theatre Calgary's new Page to Stage New Works Festival with TC'S artistic director Stafford Arima.
The inaugural festival, which will showcase three new works in various stages of development, will run March 20-21 and the readings will be available to the public online with Zoom.
“This festival was Stafford's idea and when we began talking about it in January, he asked me to not only curate it with him but to select the theme for it,” says Running Coyote, who has authored and performed three major works of his own in the past three years.
“One thing Stafford mentioned in our initial discussions was that the musical The Louder We Get was the first time in 30 years that a gay-theme play received its premiere at Theatre Calgary. That was all I had to hear to know the theme for this first festival had to focus on the works and ideas of LGBTQ2S+ artists.
“The queer community has intrinsically been tied to Theatre Calgary since the company's inception. The artists have been on our stage but they have not been telling their stories,” Running Coyote said.
“It's very much Theatre Calgary's responsibility to support these artists in reflecting the diversity and depth of their experiences and it's time the queer community didn't have to go beyond our city limits to see themselves reflected on stage,” Running Coyote continued.
When he put out a call for scripts and ideas, he received 54 submissions in varying stages of development. “There was everything from full scripts to single-page concept ideas and so many of them were so good.”
He has selected University of Winnipeg associate professor Sharanpal Ruprai's domestic comedy Bollywood Basement Boutique, Sable Sweetgrass Katoiyissa's domestic drama Awowakii, and Matthew Oliver van Diepen's historical dramedy Agápi sti Fury.
These three plays with separate casts will begin workshopping the week of March 15 with Rohit Chokhani directing Bollywood Basement Boutique, Roy Emery Twigg guiding Awowakii and Conrad Belau in the director's chair for Agápi sti Fury.