Did you know that women form 50 per of the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s membership - but they do not account for even one quarter of the nation’s produced playwrights?

(This is according to a recent (2015) study Achieving Equity in Canadian Theatre: A Report with Best Practice Recommendations, published by the Playwright Guild of Canada's Equity in Theatre division.)

At Persistence Theatre, we support the development of new plays by female-identifying individuals through hosting workshop that provide the the playwright access to professional directors, actors and dramaturges. Together these teams provide the playwright with a safe space to trial the script and make changes based on feedback. The workshop usually ends with a public presentation so that the reactions of a live audience are added into the value of the process.

Upcoming Workshops

QUEEN MARGARET
By Jemma Alix Levy
Public Presentation: Sunday December 10, 2017 at 7pm
Location: The Gathering Place Theatre
Director: Berni Stapleton
Actors: Christopher Dunn, Alexis Koetting, George Robertson, Paul Rowe

Free admission but we will be collecting free will offerings of cash or gently-used second-hand clothing for The Gathering Place.

Queen Margaret retells British history with a new focus, emphasizing the modern relevance of England's past, much like Shakespeare himself did. Written and adapted by Jemma Alix Levy, the play combines the poetry of Shakespeare with traditional storytelling techniques to weave a thrilling tale of cut-throat politics and the woman who carves out a place within the male-dominated world of political power. Queen Margaret revisits four of Shakespeare's history plays to tell the story of the woman who survived them all.

Four actors wield familiar yet fresh text - and a couple of broadswords - to elegantly cut through this timeless story of shifting alliances and political intrigue. "Why, this it is, when men are ruled by women."
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Actor - Christopher Dunn
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Actor - Alexis Koetting
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Actor - George Robertson
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Actor - Paul Rowe
Jemma Alix Levy got her BA from Amherst College, graduated from The Juilliard School's directing program, then received an MA in Humanities from the University of Chicago, and went on to earn an MFA in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin College's program in association with the American Shakespeare Center.  She is the founder and artistic director of Muse of Fire Theatre in Evanston, IL. Before Muse of Fire, she started and ran Runamuck Theatre Company in Austin, TX.  Her directing credits include critically-acclaimed productions in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Texas, and Chicago, including many productions for Muse of Fire.  Her playwriting includes Queen Margaret and an adaptation of Hamlet called Believe None of Us​.  She has taught theatre at Webster University, Wabash College, Roosevelt University, Mary Baldwin College, and The Brearley School. Currently, Jemma is an Assistant Professor of Theater at Washington and Lee University.  Recent directing includes Macbeth for Quill Theatre in Richmond, VA, and ​The Taming of the Shrew for the American Shakespeare Center's 2017-18 Wicked Folly Tour.
Berni Stapleton is a playwright, author and director. She is a recipient of the Rhonda Payne Award for Excellence in Theatre from Arts NL. She is a recipient of the WANL award for best work in non-fiction for her book They Let Down Baskets. Her book This is the Cat from Creative Books won rave reviews. She was recently featured in the Cuffer Anthology of short stories. She was also recently published in the new Breakwater Books Anthology of Newfoundland Plays, as well as the anthologies Voices From the Landwash, (Breakwater) Going it Alone (Nuage) and has been featured in the Capilano Review. Berni's company Girl Power Inc. produced her hit show Brazil Square to sold-out audiences this summer at the newly restored Majestic Theatre. Berni is a respected performer with such companies as Artistic Fraud, Rising Tide Theatre and Resource Centre for the Arts Theatre.
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From: Equity in Theatre Best Practice Recommendations (2015)

Past Workshops

ORIGINAL
Written and performed by Sharon King-Campbell
A public presentation took place on Monday October 2 at 7pm at The Annex in Mount Pearl

Director: Berni Stapleton
Dramaturge: Sara Tilley
Development Actor: Willow Kean

Eve wants justice for herself, for humanity and for women in the face of a God that set her up to fail and then abandoned her. Pandora wants to protect the world from the secret evil she carries with her everywhere. Embla wants the end of the world and a new beginning – one that, this time, doesn't include her.

original explores what being a woman means and has meant throughout Western Civilization, from creation to right now.
St. John’s is home to a rich, diverse, and vibrant urban Indigenous community. Located on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Beothuk, the lands and waters in and around the City have traditionally served as a gathering place for the Mi’kmaq. The broader region of Newfoundland and Labrador continues to be home to diverse Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. We honour and pay respect to the past, present, and future caretakers of these territories.

We also must acknowledge, as we gather together this historic evening, the labour theft extracted from people of African descent, used to build European wealth and economies globally, and in the Canadian nation state, including Newfoundland and Labrador’s shipbuilding and cod fishery industries, through the violence of trans-Atlantic enslavement.

We thank both First Light and the office of the Vice-Provost of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism at Memorial University for crafting and sharing these words that provide us with important perspectives.

As Armine Nutting Gosling herself reflected, “No class, or race, or sex can have its interests attended to...​unless it is represented by direct suffrage,” and in doing so she appropriately recognized the overlap of multiple forms of discrimination.