Playwrighting, Process, and Adaptation, with Catherine Banks
Playwrighting, Process, and Adaptation, with Catherine Banks
Celebrating Women Playwrights: So Much Excellence, So Little Time Series
Join PGC’s Women Caucus for the first installment of this inspirational & informative conversation series, led by established Canadian women playwrights in celebration of International Women’s Day!
It takes Catherine Banks many drafts and years to write a play even when she is adapting another author’s play, poem, or novel. Often, she has the full story early on, but the core is messy, so most of the work is cutting away dialogue until her “Ahhhh” insight. Getting there is half the fun and half the agony.
Moderated by Rita Shelton Deverell.
FREE & OPEN TO ALL!
About Catherine:
Catherine Banks is a three-time nominated, two-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for English Drama with Bone Cage (Playwrights Canada Press, 2008) and It Is Solved By Walking (Playwrights Canada Press, 2012), and Downed Hearts (Sirocco Press, 2025 nominated). Her plays have garnered many awards, and they have been performed in Canada, USA, Europe, and Scotland. It is Solved by Walking was translated into Catalan. Catherine’s body of work also includes Miss N’ Me; Three Storey, Ocean View, and Bitter Rose (Scirocco Press); In This Light; Charmaine’s Magic (Theatre for Young People); The Hope Project, The Hildegard Project (Theatre for Young People), and her recent adaptation of Ernest Buckler’s classic novel The Mountain and the Valley, which premiered in 2024. Bone Cage was made into a film and won many awards on the film festival circuit. Catherine is a graduate of Acadia University, has taught playwriting at The Fountain School of the Performing Arts, Dalhousie University, and Sage Hill, and she holds the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (Honorary) from Mount St. Vincent University.
About Rita:
Rita Shelton Deverell is an independent scholar, author, as well as a theatre and media artist. Dr. Deverell is Lakehead University’s 10th chancellor, and she currently serves on the President’s Council on Truth and Reconciliation. She is a trustee of the Royal Ontario Museum, and was appointed to the Board of Directors of CBC/Radio-Canada in 2020. Her honours include: two Geminis; the Black Women’s Civic Engagement Network Leadership Award; Order of Canada (2005); 2022 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Lifetime Achievement, Broadcasting; 2018 ACTRA Woman of the Year.
2019 saw the publication of her book American Refugees: Turning to Canada for Freedom, and her play Who You Callin Black Eh? won the Teen Jury prize at the Toronto Fringe Festival, and in 2022 a Canada Council Digital Now grant.
BA Philosophy, Adelphi University. MA, History of Religions, Columbia University/Union Theological Seminary. Dissertation on Arts Policy, Ed.D, OISE/University of Toronto.