Join us in Celebrating World Theatre Day!

Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) celebrates World Theatre Day on March 27th, 2023.   Join us as we celebrate with Three of our 2022 Tom Hendry Award Winners as we listen to their work followed by a creative conversation and Q & A! Register below and join in the celebration!

March 27th, 2023

12PM PDT/ 1PM MDT & CST/ 3PM EDT/ 4PM ADT/ 4:30PM NDT

FREE

Marie Beath Badian is an award-winning, Filipinx-Canadian writer and playwright based in T’karonto [Toronto, Ontario, Canada]. Recently, she was co-nominated along with Romeo Candido for a 2022 Canadian Screen Award for Best Writing/Web-series for Topline on CBC Gem. Her play The Waltz was named The Globe and Mail’s Critic’s Pick and included in its Top Ten Toronto Productions of 2022. Her play Common: A Trilogy is the 2022 Recipient of The Playwright Guild of Canada’s Tom Hendry Award for New Drama. Her other plays include The Waltz, Prairie Nurse, The Best Friend Blanket Fort Show, The Making of St. Jerome, Mind Over Matter, and Novena. Marie Beath is a two-time alumnus of The Banff Playwrights Lab. She has developed work in the playwright units of Cahoots Theatre Company, Tarragon Theatre, Soulpepper Playwrights Circle and The Factory Theatre. She was the Playwright-in-Residence at fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company, Project:Humanity and The Blyth Festival. Her plays Prairie Nurse and The Waltz are part of a multi-generational trilogy spanning fifty-years, set in rural Saskatchewan. The third play, The Cottage Guest, is in development. All three are commissioned by The Blyth Festival.

www.mariebeath.com

Sydney Scott is a trans-disciplinary artist, performer, and playwright whose work as a drag artist has been showcased in Toronto and San-Francisco. Sydney is fervent about “queering” the stage, the creation process, and institutions where art is born. Their practice is grounded in the body, intimacy, pleasure, desire, and dissecting the male gaze and the construction of “the feminine”. They understand theatre as an intimate process that requires a nuanced and evolving practice of care, disrupting the way things have always been done to build safe and accessible creative environments. In the last year, Sydney worked as a Research Assistant for two equity-based projects at University of Toronto: the Compendium for Diverse and Vibrant Voices in Theatre, and Theatre Storywork at the Indigenous Creation Studio. Sydney is abundantly grateful to share their work alongside these talented playwrights on World Theatre Day.

Jovanni Sy is a playwright, director, performer, and the former artistic director of Gateway Theatre (Vancouver) and Cahoots Theatre (Toronto). Jovanni wrote Nine Dragons which premiered at Vertigo Theatre in 2017 before transferring to Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and Gateway Theatre. Nine Dragons received a Jessie Richardson Award for Best New Play and was also nominated for a Betty Mitchell Award and a Winnipeg Theatre Award.

Jovanni’s solo play A Taste of Empire premiered at Cahoots Theatre in 2010 and was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play. A Taste of Empire was revived by Boca del Lupo Theatre in 2014 and 2015 and then was translated into Cantonese as 食盡天下 by Derek Chan who performed the piece with Jovanni directing. 食盡天下 travelled to Toronto and was nominated for a Dora in 2018 for Best Touring Production. Carmela Sison is currently translating A Taste of Empire into Tagalog as Lasa ng Imperyo and will perform the piece with Nina Lee Aquino directing.

Jovanni’s directing credits include: The Five Vengeances, The Orchard (After Chekhov), Valley Song, Yoga Play (Vancouver); Stitch (Toronto); Murder on the Orient Express (Calgary); and Blackbird, Antigone, God of Carnage (Hong Kong).

In June 2022, Jovanni played Mr. Miyagi in the pre-Broadway tryout of The Karate Kid, the Musical in St. Louis. Other recent and upcoming credits include the world premieres of Forgiveness (Theatre Calgary/Arts Club) and Prison Dancer (Citadel Theatre/National Arts Centre).

Jovanni currently has three plays in development: Salesman in China (Stratford Festival); Kowloon Bay (a Nine Dragons prequel) for Vertigo Theatre; and his PGC Comedy Award winning play The Tao of the World (Citadel Theatre).