The New Play Festival Program—1989 to 2007
A Brief History
In 1989, Theatre BC hosted the Canadian National Theatre Festival, featuring competitive productions from community theatre groups across the nation and some invited international companies. As part of that very successful event, Theatre BC instituted the 1st Annual Canadian National Playwriting Competition and the subsequent New Play Workshops
The winning and finalist playwrights from the previous year’s competition were invited to take part in Theatre BC’s New Play Festival. The playwrights worked with theatre professional dramaturges and registrant community, student and semi-professional actors and readers to assist with further development of their scripts. The New Play Festival culminated in stage public readings of each script, giving audiences and registrants an opportunity to check out 7-10 top new plays each year.
These competitions; The Canadian National Playwriting Competition and New Play Festival; were discontinued in 2010, mainly due to funding cuts. The Board of Directors has recommended that the Playwriting Competition be resurrected but the focus shifted to a BC Playwriting Competition only.