The Québécois Playwright Project

 

 

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presented the Québécois Playwright Project, livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Monday 17 October 2016 at 3:30 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 5:30 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 6:30 p.m. EDT (New York). Share your thoughts on Twitter and Instagram with #howlround.

Join us for an evening discovering contemporary writing from Quebec, Canada. Even located so close to the US, productions of Québécois writers are presented more regularly in Berlin, London, and Spain than in the Americas.

Québécois playwrights David Paquet (2:14, directed by Knud Adams, translated by Chantal Bilodeau), Sarah Berthiaume (Yukonstyle, directed by Tina Satter, translated by Nadine Desrochers), and Michel Marc Bouchard (Tom at the Farm, directed by Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, translated by Linda Gaboriau) will visit the Segal Center.

Introduction by Yves Jubinville, director of the École supérieure de théâtre, Université du Québec à Montréal. The reading is followed by a panel discussion with the playwrights, the directors, Yves Jubinville, and Brigitte Poupart (author and director, artist in residence at the Délégation générale du Québec in New York).

In collaboration with Centre des Auteurs Dramatiques (CEAD), a Montreal‑based organization that provides support for playwriting development and promotes Québécois and Canadian Francophone plays and playwrights.

Curated by Emmanuelle Sirois/Québec, International Projects Advisor, CEAD; Visiting Scholar 2015/2016, The Segal Center, in collaboration with Antje Oegel.

With additional support from the Quebec Government Office, New York; Caroline Dufresne, Cultural Attache.

Photo by Jérémie Battaglia

Sarah Berthiaume’s first play, Le Déluge après (2006) was awarded the Égrégore prize in 2006 and presented in Avignon, Jonquière, and in 2010, in English at the Théâtre La Chapelle, in Toronto and in German translation in Sarbrücken. Yukonstyle (2010) was presented in Limoges, Innsbrück, Heidelberg, Toronto, Brussels, and Paris (Théâtre La Colline). Her plays have been featured at Dramaturgies en Dialogue (2009) and the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui. She was awarded the Sony Labou Tansi in 2015.

Photo by Julie Perreault

Acclaimed playwright Michel Marc Bouchard wrote over 25 plays, all staged. Les Feluettes (1986), one of his most important plays and recipient of major prizes, was adapted into an opera and presented by the Opéra de Montréal in May 2016. He received major awards by the Canada Council for the Arts and finalist for the Governor General for performing arts awards, among many other accolades. Other major plays comprise Les muses orphelines (1988) and Christine, la reine-garçon(2012).

A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada (2005), David Paquet‘s play Porc-Épic (2006) was presented in Montreal, Germany, Mexico, Austria, France, and Belgium, and earned him major awards such as the Prix Michel-Tremblay (2010), the Governor General Awards and the Prix Sony Labou Tansi (2014). His play Le brasier (2012) is presented this fall at the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (Montreal), where he is artist-in-residence. David also serves on the board of the Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD).

 Knud Adams‘s recent productions include Julia Jarcho’s Every Angel is Brutal (Clubbed Thumb), Eliza Bent’s On a Clear Day I Can See to Elba (The New Ohio), Celine Song’s Tom & Eliza (JACK), Max Posner’s Snore (Juilliard), Carl Holder’s An Intimate Evening with Typhoid Mary (The New Ohio), and Sam Alper’sLoveplay/Playmoney (La MaMa). After graduating from Kenyon College, he continued his training by assisting some of the nation’s foremost directors: André Gregory, Elizabeth LeCompte, Richard Foreman, Sam Gold, and Sarah Benson. He was a Drama League Directing Fellow, a member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and a Playwrights Horizons Directing Resident.

 Tina Satter is a writer, director, and Artistic Director of the Obie-winning theatre company Half Straddle founded in 2008. She is a recipient of a 2016 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award and a 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award. She has written and directed 9 full-length shows with Half Straddle that have premiered in New York City, with a number going on to be shown at theatres and festivals in Europe, Japan, and other US cities. Tina attended Mac Wellman’s graduate playwriting program at Brooklyn College. Her first collection of plays, Seagull (Thinking of you), was published by 53rd State Press in 2014.

 Ed Sylvanus Iskandar recently directed an immersive The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare Theatre Company, DC), and world premieres of Charles Francis Chan, Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery by Lloyd Suh (NAATCO, NYT Critics’ Pick) and Sojourners by Mfoniso Udofia (Playwrights’ Realm). Ed received a Drama Desk Special Award for the “visionary directorial excellence” of The Mysteries (The Flea, NYT Critics’ Pick) and The Golden Dragon (PlayCo, TONY Critics’ Pick), with additional nominations for Amy Freed’s Restoration Comedy and Sean Graney’s These Seven Sicknesses (The Flea, NYT Critics’ Pick). Affiliations:  Director, Lincoln Center Global Exchange; Drama League Fellow; NYTW Usual Suspect; BA (Stanford); MFA (Carnegie Mellon). www.ediskandar.com

 Yves Jubinville is Professor of Theatre Studies and current Director of the École Supérieur de Théâtre of Université du Québec à Montréal. He is a member of The Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la littérature et la culture québécoise CRILCQ. His work focuses, among other topics, on the historiography of Theatre in Québec and contemporary theatre practices. He was the editor of the journal L’Annuaire théâtral from 2008 to 2014. He also collaborates with the research group “Régimes socio-esthétiques du théâtre au Québec.”

 Actor, writer, director, and producer, Brigitte Poupart’s latest directorial foray is a show for Cirque du Soleil: Luzia; which premiered in May 2016 in Montreal, and is currently on tour internationally. Since graduating from the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal in 1990, has appeared in more than thirty theatrical productions including both mainstream and experimental works. She has been involved in international tours that have taken her to Australia, the United States, and Europe. She co-founded the theatre company Transthéâtre, in which she wrote, directed, and produced her own creations (www.transtheatre.com). She is now in preparation for a 360° fiction film, a new creation for theatre and just finished production as the lead role in the new Robin Aubert film: Les Affamés (Ravenous).

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