Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Daniel MacIvor has been awarded The Banff Centre’s $25,000 playwriting commission, given in celebration of the Centre’s 75th Anniversary. One of the richest and most significant commissioning and development opportunities to benefit the Canadian theatre community in recent years, the 75th Anniversary National Playwriting Commission Competition was announced in March.
MacIvor’s winning proposal was chosen from almost 100 submissions from across Canada, and in an unexpected twist, the Centre has also chosen to provide creative support to plays by two additional applicants, Colleen Murphy and Hannah Moscovitch.
“Commissioning new work is at the heart of The Banff Centre’s vision as a catalyst for creativity, contributing to the repertoire of Canadian theatre, music, and dance.” says Kelly Robinson, director of Theatre Arts at The Banff Centre. “The submissions represented a diversity of theatrical styles and came from a very diverse community. We feel that the ideas presented really spoke to the breadth and the depth of the playwriting community in Canada. During the adjudication it became clear that settling on one work would ignore other plays that demanded to be supported.”
Serving with Robinson on the jury for the award were playwright John Murrell, the Banff Centre’s emeritus artist-in-residence, translator Linda Gaboriau, director Brian Quirt, and the co-directors of the Banff Playwrights Colony, Maureen Labonté and Bob White. They noted that one theme that emerged most of all was a willingness to explore the idea of Canada and what it is to be Canadian in its many forms.
MacIvor’s piece, titled Deshita, is a story set in Tokyo that examines the relationship between Minako, a Japanese interpreter from a conventional family, and Colin, a Canadian ex-pat ESL teacher who brings radical liberalism to her life. A comedy and a modern love story, the play is also tragic in its examination of the lengths people are willing to go to preserve their old world culture.
“In our 75th year The Banff Centre was looking to celebrate the past, the present, and look forward to our future,” Robinson says. “Daniel’s piece, with its focus on a story happening in the now, with its collision of the future and the past, seemed to most touch on the spirit of the commission.”
MacIvor’s award includes a two-week writing retreat at The Banff Centre’s Leighton Artists’ Colony during the 2008/2009 season, and two residencies with the Banff Playwrights Colony in 2009 and 2010. As part of the commission, The Banff Centre will seek a significant production partner to ensure further production opportunities for the work.
A playwright, filmmaker, and actor, Daniel MacIvor won the 2006 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for his collection of plays, I Still Love You. His plays include Marion Bridge, Cul-de-Sac (with collaborator Daniel Brooks), and You Are Here. He is currently developing a screenplay called Remember Me, and drama commissions for New York’s Montsgo Theatre, and Mulgrave Road Theatre in Nova Scotia. In spring of 2008, MacIvor was the inaugural Senior Playwright in Residence for the Banff Playwrights Colony, which just celebrated its 35th Anniversary.
The adjudicators also chose plays by Colleen Murphy, winner of the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for The December Man, and Hannah Moscovitch, playwright-in-residence at the Tarragon Theatre, that both revolve around Canada’s participation in the war in Afghanistan. In addition to the commission, both playwrights will receive creative support in developing their plays as part of the 2009 Banff Playwrights Colony.
The Banff Centre’s 75th Anniversary activities are made possible with the support from The Kahanoff Foundation.
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More information on The Banff Centre’s 75th Anniversary playwriting commission.
