CURRENT WORKSHOPS
PLAYFINDING: Discovering Your Play In Your Own Story with Daniel MacIvor
Join Daniel MacIvor in investigating the process of creating and developing an original play or monologue by discovering the connections between yourself and your idea. Through conversations and weekly exercises aimed at uncovering how theatre work transforms both creators and audiences, MacIvor will help participants find their play.
Note: This process works best for projects in very early stages of development – notions and vague ideas are welcome – work in draft stage is not ideal since we are revisiting early impulses to creation.
DANIEL’S BIO +
Daniel MacIvor is a playwright, performer, filmmaker and producer who divides his time between Toronto and Nova Scotia. He has been the recipient of a Governor General’s Literary Award, the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre, a New York Obie Award and a GLAAD Award. His plays include Never Swim Alone, In On It, His Greatness and A Beautiful View and have been translated into French, German, Czech, Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese. He has worked on commissions for the Wexner Centre, The Banff Centre, the National Theatre School of Canada, the Stratford Festival and the Canadian Opera Company. His most fruitful partnership has been with director Daniel Brooks with whom he has created eight solo performances for international touring. From 2021–2026 he was the creative consultant for venerable queer media company Pink Triangle Press creating new media that encourages allyship and advocacy. Currently Daniel runs Toronto-based reWork Productions developing new theatre and media.
HORIZONTAL: Writing Towards a Theatrical Event with Jillian Keiley
Writers will be encouraged to create scripts that invite interpretation as well as rich visual and aural storytelling. They will embrace extremely challenging staging proposals and leave the space for directors to take them up. Emphasis will be placed on writing “horizontally”—approaching the play like a piece of music with layers that unfold over time, where rhythm, duration, and the use of theatrical space are as essential as dialogue and plot.
Participants will examine how a play lives across its full runtime, and how the time we have borrowed from the audience becomes the central compositional tool.
Through exercises and collaboration, students will investigate how to build theatrical events that engage audiences beyond well-constructed narrative and poetry – using metaphor, image, sound, movement, and design, as well as the higher dimensions of performance: harmony, spirit, and resonance. The script will be treated as the structural bones, with the full realization of the work emerging from the interplay of all theatrical elements.
By the end of the course, students will have created original material that prioritizes theatricality, collaboration, and the live experience; crafting not just plays that are counted in pages but theatrical events that are counted in moments.
JILLIAN’S BIO +
With 37 years of experience, Jillian Keiley has helped shape the landscape of Canadian theatre. As the former Artistic Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre English Theatre (2012–2022), Founding Artistic Director of the renowned Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, and Associate AD at the Resource Centre for the Arts, Jillian has been instrumental in more than 200 theatre pieces, guiding stories from concept to stage as an innovative director, producer and presenter. Jillian’s directing portfolio spans over 75 productions across diverse genres, celebrated for their invention, artistry, and powerful storytelling. Her contributions have been honored with prestigious awards, including the 2004 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre and the Canada Council John Hirsch Prize. She also holds honorary doctorates from Memorial University and York University, recognizing her work as a theatre maker and leader.