The Long & Short Of It
Curated and edited by Brian Drader (Executive Director of the Manitoba Association of Playwrights), The Long & Short of It is an anthology of short plays by writers from the Prairie Theatre Exchange Playwrights Unit. The collection conjures up a landscape filled with aspiring filmmakers,bickering couples, junior chess players, street corner memoirists, and mendacious pie bakers, amongst others. A compendium of Manitoba comedy, drama, and everything in between, The Long & Short of It provides a showcase for some of the province’s finest theatre writers. This sampler of epigrammatic plays was brought together in celebration of Prairie Theatre Exchange, the Carol Shields Festival of New Works, and PTE’s former Artistic Director, Bob Metcalfe.
Find The Long & Short of It at J. Gordon Schillingford Publishing Inc.
Asking the Right Questions
On October 15-16th of 2011 Manitoba Association of Playwrights (MAP) in Winnipeg offered a workshop with the title: "Exploring and Creation of A Dramaturgical Approach." The workshop was given by Danish director and dramaturge Jens Svane Boutrup. There were 6 participants in the workshop, all members of MAP and all have had shows produced/experience in playwriting. There was also one observing participant, who assisted in taking notes.
Jens proposed and tested out with the playwrights an approach to dramaturgy based on appreciative inquiry (among other things). The rule was: you can't give advice; you can only ask questions.
Download the "Asking the Right Questions" brochure, produced by MAP, 2011.
A Map of the Senses: Twenty Years of Manitoba Plays
Edited by Rory Runnells, with an introduction by Doug Arrell, A Map of the Senses is an anthology of plays by Manitoban plays produced between 1982 and 1998. Contributors include Maureen Hunter ("Footprints on the Moon"), Bruce McManus ("Calenture"), Alf Silver ("Thimblerig"), Rick Chafe ("Zac and Speth") Ross McMillan ("Washing Spider Out"), Deborah O'Neil ("Worm Moon"), Harry Rintoul ("Between Then and Now"), Ian Ross ("Heart of a Distant Tribe"), Elise Moore ("Live With It"), Yvette Nolan ("Blade"), and Dennis Trochim ("Better Looking Boys"). Published by Scirocco Drama, 2000.
Find A Map of the Senses on Amazon.ca.
I Was A Teenage Playwright: The First Ten Years of the Scirocco/MAP Highschool Playwriting Competition
Edited by Angus Kohm, I Was A Teenage Playwright is an anthology of the winners of the highschool playwriting competition. Published by Scirocco Drama, 2011.
Find I Was A Teenage Playwright on Amazon.ca
Top 8 dramaturgical questions
(from "Asking the Right Questions")
1. What is the play about?
2. What is driving the play?
3. Where does the play begin?
4. What are the rules of the play?
5.What are you curious about in the play?
6. What about the play scares you?
7. What do you hear? - see? – smell? – feel? – taste?
8. If you had to cut/add one scene – what would it be?