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National Playwriting Competition
Winners Announced

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Date: SEPTEMBER 17, 1997

WINNING PLAYS ANNOUNCED!

Jury Selects 10 Finalists from 155 New Canadian Plays in Theatre BC's 9th Annual Canadian National Playwriting Competition

THEATRE BC is pleased to announce the identities of the jury and the results of Theatre BC's 9th Annual Canadian National Playwriting Competition:

THEATRE BC, through official media sponsor Bravo! New Style Arts Channel, today announced the jurors and results of Theatre BC's 9th Annual Canadian National Playwriting Competition. The opening of the winning playwrights' sealed envelopes was taped for national broadcast on Bravo! between Thursday and Saturday, September 18-20th.

Jurors Martin Kinch (professional writer, director and playwright); Kathleen Weiss, (director, dramaturge and artistic director of Vancouver's "Women In View" festival); and Jennifer Martin, (actor, instructor and playwright), independently and confidentially reviewed 155 original, unproduced scripts entered under pseudonyms by professional and nonprofessional Canadian playwrights between February 28 and June 16, 1997. After all scripts had been scrutinized, the jury met for the first time September 4, 1997 to select the three category-winners and seven remaining "finalists".

This year 91 Full-Length and 64 One Act plays, including six submissions that were disqualified, made up the 155 entries received from across Canada. Seventeen scripts received three "Recommendations" each and from these the final selections were made. Accompanying sealed envelopes containing each playwright's true identity remained sealed until the results were recorded for BravoNews today.

The Category-winning scripts and playwrights for 1997 are:

Full-Length Category: ($ 1,500 Cash Award)

SWOLLEN TONGUES by Kathleen Oliver, Vancouver, B.C.

"A neo-restoration comedy in verse about a brother and sister, both poets, who are in love with the same woman. When the brother discovers that someone has been secretly 'improving' his love poems, his thirst for justice leads to increasingly complicated scenarios."

One-Act Category: ($ 1,000 Cash Award)

A BOWL OF ROSE LEAVES by Ted Atherton, Toronto, ON

"A young woman's scientist lover returns home unexpectedly and under mysterious circumstances from a distant experiment. Moreover, he appears subtly changed. He suggests an odd game: that they not speak of this encounter when next they meet. The next morning he is gone as mysteriously as he arrived. When he returns on schedule from the experiment, he pretends so well that the secret visit never occurred that the young woman begins to suspect that he really doesn't remember at all."

Special Merit Category: ($ 750 Cash Award)

LIFE THROUGH A CRACKED WINDSHIELD by Michael Hentges, Calgary, AB

"About an absurd sort of romance which winds up being skewered by reality. Along the way, we meet a sundry assortment of characters whose life skill portfolio is insufficiently stocked to address what is commonly referred to as 'our daily struggles'."

The three winning playwrights will participate in the Competition's companion event, the NEW PLAY WORKSHOPS, part of Theatre BC's provincial BACKSTAGE '97 workshop on Granville Island, Vancouver, BC, October 10-13, 1997. There they will be paired with a professional director and a cast of workshop actors for both one-on-one dramaturgical sessions and three days of intense, day-long re-working sessions, concluding in staged Public Readings, Monday, October 13, 1997 at the Arts Club Revue Theatre.

The remaining seven (7) Finalists selected by the jury are (in random order):

A FLY ON THE WALL (Full-Length) by Michelle Wong, Vancouver, BC;
CYBERSOAP (Full-Length) by Ted Atherton, Toronto, ON;
PLUM BLOSSOM WARRIOR (Full-Length) by Sandra Filippelli, Vancouver, BC;
COLD IN THE MORNING (Full-Length) by Lynn Coady, Vancouver, BC;
SOUND AND FURY (Full-Length) by Jeff Pitcher, Kamloops, BC;
SNOWLANDS (Full-Length) by Katherine Sandford, Ottawa, ON;
THE WEAVERBIRD (Full-Length) by Douglas Arthur Brown, Marion Bridge, NS.

Finalists will be invited to the NEW PLAY WORKSHOPS to be teamed with a professional dramaturge and a cast of Equity actors for a 4-hour "round table" session to develop the script.

The jury cited that the majority of scripts were large, ambitious plays "with complex human landscapes". Many represented a "national vision", from Newfoundland to British Columbia. They were "structurally innovative" and featured characters "longing for human connection and the difficulty in finding that in contemporary life". Scripts generally fell down due to a lack of dramatic action or "finish"' and for being "filmic" in structure.

THEATRE BC once again offered a written critique by one of the jurors for a second, optional fee and received over 40 such requests from this year's playwrights.

Theatre BC's Annual Canadian National Playwriting Competition was introduced in 1989 and since has received 1,513 original plays with several winning and finalist plays going on to professional productions across the country. Last year's Full-Length winner, GRACE by Vancouver playwright, Michael MacLennan, premiered at The Belfry Theatre in Victoria last March and will be part of Alberta Theatre Project's 1997/98 season. RUNNING DOG, PAPER TIGER by Simon Johnston, 1995's Full-Length winner will open Richmond Gateway Theatre's season the end of September.

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Please address all CORRESPONDENCE to:

"The Canadian National Playwriting Competition" THEATRE BC #307 - 1005 Broad Street, Victoria, BC V8W 2A1 Phone: (250) 381-2443 or FAX: (250) 381-4419 Deadline: July 27, 1998 "Promoting the Development of Theatre in B.C. since 1932"