On Stage interviewTag

Frances Koncan on How Playwrighting Gets Her "Closest to the Truth"

Frances Koncan's play, Women of the Fur Trade (Playwrights Canada Press) is the antidote to dull historical renditions of early Canada. Set in "eighteen hundred and something something", it follows three ...

Playwright & Passe Muraille Artistic Director Marjorie Chan on Writing the Scenes That "Need to Get Out" First

Librettist and playwright Marjorie Chan, who serves as Artistic Director of Toronto's iconic Theatre Passe Muraille while also creating her own plays and librettos, has a knack for exploring power, ...

Fairy Tale Lovers' Delight: Read an Excerpt from Kat Sandler's Dark & Funny Play, Yaga

The story of Baba Yaga, the forest-dwelling witch who grinds bones in her chicken-legged house, is one of the most enduring, strange, and iconic images from world folklore, and that's saying a lot. So ...

"I Knew I Wanted Big Stories" Susanna Fournier on Crafting Hundreds of Years of Dystopian History for Her Plays

Imagine creating not just a fully realized world, but an entire history that spans hundreds of years. That is the creativity Susanna Fournier brought to her suite of three plays, The Empire (Playwrights ...

Anosh Irani, Author of Masterpiece One-Man Show, Buffoon, on His Life and Process as a Playwright

Anosh Irani is one of Canada's most treasured and exciting playwrights and novelists, with his past work landing him on numerous award lists, including the Governor General's Literary Awards and the ...

Playwright Makambe K Simamba on Fearlessly Exploring "How Far Characters are Willing to Go in Order to Live Their Truths"

CW: discussion of anti-Black violenceIt's a gutting image: a seventeen-year old Black boy, a child in a hoodie, dead far too soon because of hateful and unchecked anti-Black racism. Makambe K Simamba's Our ...

Michael Grant on His (Naked) New Play & Creating a Fictional Small Town Across His Works

Norm and Ruth were just trying to get their marriage back on track. A simple idea: to head back to a place they knew they'd been happy and see if they can re-capture the spark there. But the struggling ...

Trina Davies' Brilliant New Play, Silence, Brings an Overlooked Figure in History to Centre Stage

It would be hard to find anyone who doesn't know who Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was. But Mabel Hubbard Bell isn't a name that pops up in many history classes. The untold story ...

"Theatre is Collaborative at its Core" Norman Yeung on Writing for the Stage, Shower Thoughts, & Going Full Carnival

In the age of social media and lives lived partially online, the issue of free speech is perhaps more heated than ever. When Isabelle, a film professor, creates an unmoderated online discussion for her ...