PGC members have been paired up with an international playwright to share their work and discuss the craft of playwriting with one another. You can tune into these live events and get a glimpse of what these theatre creators have been up to!

Craft Bites International is open and free to the public.

Please note registration is required one hour prior to each session.

Register HERE.

About the Playwrights:

Taylor Marie Graham is a Waterloo Arts Award-winning playwright, a Dora-nominated librettist, and an Assistant Professor at Bishop’s University. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and theatre studies from the University of Guelph. You can find Taylor’s articles in Canadian Theatre Review, Intermission Magazine, Routledge’s Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, The Conversation, Theatre Research in Canada, Guernica Editions, as well as Canadian Literature. Critics describe her plays and operas as “arresting and funny” (Slotkin), “uncommonly cool” (Mooney on Theatre), “charmingly twisted” (Toronto Star), “powerful, and courageous,” (OnStage), “meaningful for all ages” (Intermission), “darkly evocative” (Istvan Reviews), “psychological, theological, and ornithological” (Our Theatre Voice), “as moving as it is scary” (My Entertainment World), and “profound, beautifully crafted” (StageDoor). Her book Cottage Radio & Other Plays (Talonbooks) animates a wild cast of Southwestern Ontario characters –particularly its strong, hilarious rural women– with complex histories and relationships to the land.

Tanya P. Lopez, a Filipino director, playwright, translator and actor is the Artistic Director of the Performance Laboratory, Inc. – a professional theater company which she founded based in Bacolod City, and the Maskara Theater Ensemble – the institutional theater organization of the University of St. La Salle – Bacolod.

Her play Crossroads, first staged in 1996, has gone through many iterations in almost thirty years, addressing the challenges of many generations to provide a platform for dialogue on youth issues and concerns through touring productions and repeated re-staging in her province. Nano-nano, read in the WPI-Readathon (2012) at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, is a playful banter of two young boys that surfaces issues on how exposure to media affects young minds. Takilid na Duta (On Tilted Earth) launched during “Fluid States Philippines: On Tilted Earth: Performance, Disaster, Resilience in Archipelagic Space” (2015) and inspired from the title of the conference explore the vulnerability and resilience of its character in the face of adversity and natural disasters.

As a director, she has staged plays loosely adapted from the following classisc, such as Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godo (Godo), 2008; Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit (Kibon / Trapped), 2003; Federico Garcia Lorca’s La Casa de Bernarda Alba (Casa), 1996; John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men (Panaghoy sa Kasisidmon) 2017; and Lee Blessing’s Independence (Lupad / Flight), 1998.

With a strong background in fostering creative initiatives, she has played a key role in the establishment of numerous cultural organizations and festivals, including the Teatrokon: The Western Visayas Theatre Network; West Visayas Association of Museums; and the Sine Negrense Film Festival, Cine Ilonggo, Bakunawa Cinema of the Young; and the Kuris International Theatre Festival.

An educator by heart, she shares her passion for theater and photography through her workshops on Theater for Human Formation and Image Making Explorations to young and emerging artists.

As Executive Director of The Negros Museum and Head of the Culture and Arts Program of the University of St. La Salle, her work in arts management and cultural preservation has been widely recognized, earning her the prestigious Golden LEAF Presidential Award at the Philippine LEAF Awards Tertulia, Parangal 2024.

Our partners for this session are Women Playwrights International Philippines (WPIP) and International Playwrights’ Forum Philippines (IPFP). Learn more about them here.