Frequently Asked Questions

You may pay by cash, credit card, cheque, or electronic fund transfer.

Membership covers a one-year (365 day) period, starting from the time of activation

Try submitting an application. If the form is open for submissions, then there may be funds left. If there are no funds left, the submission form will be closed. You can also email marketing@playwrightsguild.ca to inquire.

If you are a full member in good standing, then you are eligible for two readings between April 1st and March 31st.

To have your plays entered in the Play Distribution Program, (either the Stage Ready or Copyscript listings) on our website, please simply sign into your members account and submit through your members dashboard. If you have trouble accessing this form for any reason please email orders@playwrightsguild.ca

Webinars are free for ALL members – students, supporting, and full.

With professional productions in Canada, the playwright usually gets 10% of the box-office (or sometimes 12% if it is a musical since the royalties are shared with other co-creators).

In addition to that 10%, the playwright also usually gets a “guarantee” (sometimes called an Advance); that is, a certain amount of money that the playwright is guaranteed to receive no matter how the show does at the box-office. The minimum guarantee for a PACT (Professional Association of Canadian Theatres) company is currently $2000.

Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) playwrights also get 10% of the box-office or presentation fee, but for TYA tours, the playwright may get a flat rate instead. The current flat rate minimum fee for a TYA production is of $72.50 per show.

A flat rate per show is also in effect for amateur and school productions. Currently, if the production is a full length play, then the playwright receives $105 for the first show, and $90 for all subsequent showings. If the show is a one-act, then the playwright receives $90 for the first show and $75 each for all the others.

One other consideration: If a theatre produces a show, then they also need to purchase the script. PGC usually sells the first script at normal price (often $12 for a copyscript), and then there is a discounted price for multiple script purchases. Contact the Program Manager (orders@playwrightsguild.ca) or check out the CPO for more information about that.

Copyright refers to “the right to copy,” and in most cases, only the copyright holder (usually the creator of the work) is legally entitled to reproduce the work in question, or to allow someone else to do so. Copyright applies to all original works – dramatic, musical, artistic, and literary, as well as performances, films, and sound recordings.

Copyright is automatically bestowed when an original work is created and fixed in a tangible form; for example, when your play is saved on your hard drive (you can keep an extra copy on a USB key as proof). You may also go a step further and have your work registered with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) for a fee. A certificate of ownership is issued, and it can be used in a court of law to prove copyright.

Registering your play in PGC’s Copyscript program functions in a similar manner, as an ISBN number is assigned to the play, which serves as a form of official recognition of ownership (Stage Ready plays are not assigned an ISBN). This is an excellent way to ensure copyright protection for your unpublished works! For more info on PGC’s Copyscript program, contact the Program Manager at orders@playwrightsguild.ca.

The so-called “Poor Man’s Copyright,” that is, mailing your work to yourself and leaving it un-opened as a method of verifying dates and ownership, may not stand up in a court of a law due to the possibility of tampering and a lack of legal evidence of ownership.

In Canada, copyright generally lasts for the life of the author, plus fifty years (the time frame is longer in the United States, and there are more exceptions and extensions). Anything outside of those parameters is considered public domain, and may be used and copied without penalty.

For more information about copyright law, contact PGC, or visit the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website.

The Tom Hendry Awards shortlists are released in late September/early October every year.

If you plan to include someone else’s work within your own (such as a song, a quotation, or film footage), and it is not yet in the public domain, then you must secure permission from the original creator (or record label, publisher, movie house, estate, etc.). To do so, contact the original author or the organization that holds the copyright. This might require some research, but usually information of this nature is found on the back-cover of a CD, on the title page of any published material, at the end of the credits in a film, and so forth.). Communicate the particulars of your circumstances – what you plan to do with the material, how it will be used, what it is for, when and where it will be produced, and so forth – as that might influence the overall cost of securing copyright permission.

Coming soon.

If you have a submission call, play competition, job posting, residency, etc. that playwrights need to know about send us:

• Name of the opportunity
• Deadline
• A single paragraph (100 words max) including web links and contact information

We send out CanScene (our member’s newsletter) on the 15th of every month. If you would like us to include your opportunity send it to: communications@playwrightsguild.ca before the 10th of every month, or fill out this form. If the opportunity does not meet the requirements above your posting may not be included.

General Inquiry Form

Once you have purchased a digital script, you are sent an email with a link for downloading. If you do not see this email in your inbox, you may want to check your spam folder. Should you have any difficulty with this link please email orders@playwrightsguild.ca. Please note, any emails sent regarding script orders that are sent over the weekends, holidays or on weeknights after 5:00pm will be responded to during office hours (Monday -Friday 9:00am-5:00pm).

To order printed scripts from a digital download, contact the Program Manager at orders@playwrightsguild.ca to specify which play you want, and how many printed scripts you will need.  They will follow up with the information about costs, shipping and payment.

We publish our members works as copyscripts to provide access until their works are formally published as books / anthologies. When a hard copy is in print, only that edition may be sold. When it goes out of print, we ask the playwright if they’d like a copyscript to be made available. We strive to always provide access to a script in one of these formats.

If you’re having trouble checking out online, need to submit a purchase order, or your institution requires you to pay by cheque, please contact the Program Manager at orders@playwrightsguild.ca

Our first priority is to stock our members’ plays, and to provide access to a selection of published plays or anthologies by non-members. You may not see the play in question because the playwright is not yet a member, OR the member has not yet authorized a script to be available for purchase (plays produced by large professional theatres are often unavailable for their first year of being staged). But please contact the Program Manager at orders@playwrightsguild.ca if you’d like to know the status of a script.

When you’re not looking for a specific play, but do have specific criteria, visit our full collection of scripts on the Canadian Play Outlet here and use the advanced search filters to select the things you’re looking for in a play! This is the quickest and easiest way to find what you’re looking for.

Alternatively, if you do have a specific play or playwright that you’re searching for, enter the title of the play or the name of the playwright in the website’s search function, found here. Ensure that your spelling is correct to achieve the best results. You can also search for keywords here.