2026 Comedy Award Recipient
Agency by Nathaniel Hanula-James
Viola is a queer-owned, boutique advertising agency focused on the local and the public good. When the agency’s creative director dies in hilarious circumstances, the remaining staff clash over their latest assignment: a pride campaign for a meal kit company.
The peer assessment panel said: “We were taken by the laugh out loud humour and the strong comedic mechanics of this piece. We deeply appreciated its invitation to theatricality, and its ability to (lovingly) “read to filth” every last one of its characters with wit.”
Nathaniel Hanula-James has been selected to receive the Banff Playwrights Lab auxiliary prize.
Nathaniel Hanula-James (he/they) is a theatre maker who collaborates on new work as a playwright, dramaturg, administrator, and performer. Recent projects include Tiff’ny of Athens (Shakespeare in the Ruff, 2025), co-adapted with Christine Horne; Flux in the City, a participatory theatre piece co-created with Wesley Reibeling and the Major Matt Mason Theatre Collective, about the wonderful world of municipal consultation (High Performance Rodeo, 2025); and White Taffeta Silk (Talk is Free Theatre, 2024), a short horror-comedy in which two teenagers unearth a buried wedding dress and a vengeful spirit. Nathaniel co-leads outdoor theatre company Shakespeare in the Ruff. They are a staff writer for Intermission Magazine, a facilitator of the Page Turn emerging arts writers program, and the lead facilitator of Tarragon Theatre’s Local Young Playwrights Unit.
Special thanks to Comedy Award Peer Assessment Panelists: Jivesh Parasram (Chair), Norman Yeung, Laura Teasdale.