PARC Announces 2022 Retreat Dramaturges

May 3, 2022

Caroline Bélisle (she/her) est une comédienne, autrice dramatique et féministe ben ben fâchée œuvrant principalement dans la région de Moncton, au Nouveau-Brunswick. Diplômée du programme d’Écriture dramatique de l’ÉNT en 2020, elle a également complété la formation en interprétation de l’Université de Moncton quelques années auparavant. Incisive et fataliste, elle se spécialise dans les comédies qui parlent de choses pas drôles et dans les drames faits avec rien. En 2020, elle remporte le prestigieux prix Gratien-Gélinas pour sa pièce Les remugles ou La danse nuptiale est une langue morte qui a récemment été produite par le Théâtre l’Escaouette et publiée aux Éditions Perce-Neige. On la remarque aussi pour sa série de monologues pour le spectacle-déambulatoire Pépins, un parcours de petites détresses, une production de Satellite Théâtre dans laquelle elle a prêtait aussi son corps et sa voix. Dans les dernières années, elle signe Tuiles, le spectacle des finissants en Art dramatique de l’Université de Moncton et Les ensevelies, pour les finissants de l’École nationale de théâtre du Canada. Sa pièce Dîner pour deux est produite par le Théâtre populaire d’Acadie, à Caraquet, lors de la saison artistique 2019-2020 et publiée aux Éditions Perce-Neige. Elle signe aussi toute la série de textes jeunesse racontant l’histoire de Nounours, le petit ours brun du Pays de la Sagouine. Plusieurs de ses œuvres du registre poétique sont lues au Festival à haute voix, au Festival Frye, au Festival de poésie de Caraquet, au Festival Acadie Rock et lors du Congrès mondial acadien. La prochaine production estivale du Théâtre des Béloufilles de Tadoussac est son plus récent texte Camping sauvage et domestique. Son plus grand rêve, c’est être celle qui nomme les couleurs de peinture. Elle a plein plein (trop) d’idées. Benjamin Moore, si tu lis ceci, appelle-la.
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Santiago Guzmán (he/him) is an award-winning playwright, performer, director and dramaturge originally from Metepec, Mexico, now based in St. John’s, NL. He is the Artistic Director of TODOS Productions, the Artistic Associate for Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre and General Manager for Neighbourhood Dance Works in St. John’s, NL. He is a proud member of The Quilted Collective. As a dramaturge, Santiago has focused on supporting equity-seeking, emerging writers to tell their stories, as there is a need in our community to see these stories on stage. Through his theatre company, TODOS Productions, he has supported several pieces in development alongside Robert Chafe in 2020 and 2021 TODOS’ Writing Unit. He was the dramaturge for the Fundy Fringe Festival in NB in 2020 and he is currently working with Halifax Theatre for Young People as a dramaturge on a project about immigrants in Atlantic Canada. He is currently co-dramaturging with Natércia Napoleão CAHOOTS Theatre’s Playwrights Unit, Hot House Crossing As an immigrant, queer, and artist of colour, Santiago believes that representation matters.
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Pamela Halstead (she/her) is a director, dramaturge, actor, teacher and arts consultant and Artistic Director of Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC). She is the former Artistic Director of Lunchbox Theatre (Calgary, AB) and Ship’s Company Theatre (Parrsboro, NS). In her 10 years between these two companies she dramaturged, directed and/or produced over 60 productions, the majority of them premieres of new works. Pamela received the inaugural Evans Award at the Calgary Critics’ Awards for her contribution to the vibrancy of the Calgary theatre community and the 2019 Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Bra d’Or Award for her support of Canadian women playwrights.  
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Lara Lewis (she/her/nekm) is a queer and trans mixed Mi’kmaw theatre artist based in Kjipuktuk. A Merritt-award nominated actor, she has worked with companies like Eastern Front Theatre, Theatre New Brunswick, HEIST, the Atlantic Repertory Company, the Villains Theatre, and Zuppa Theatre. As a dramaturge, she has worked with writers from across Atlantic Canada, as well as Ontatio, Quebec, and New York. She has also been a dramaturge at the PARC Retreat (Sackville, NB), NotaBle Acts Festival, TNB’s Fall Festival of New Works (both Fredericton, NB) Fresh from the Island (Georgetown, PE). Lara is also Chair of the Bus Stop Theatre Co-operative and works with the Mayworks Kjipuktuk/Halifax Festival of Working People in the Arts, and is a founding member of the Glitter Bean Café Co-op. She dabbles in textile portraiture and is a member of Glooscap First Nation.

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Rhoma Spencer 
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Jackie Torrens (she/her) is a Halifax-based actor, writer and film director. Her plays include Live! Nude! Animal!, Fables and Georama. Her documentary films for CBC, the Documentary Channel, Bravofactual and Vision include Edge of East, My Week on Welfare, Small Town Show Biz, Free Reins, Radical Age, and Bernie Langille Wants to Know What Happened To Bernie Langille. She was nominated for a Canadian Screen Best Actress Award for her work in Thom Fitzgerald’s mini series Sex & Violence. Acting theatre credits include Hamlet (Below The Salt), Cassandra in Into The Ruins (Two Planks), Liz in A Beautiful View (DTS), Rachel in Seven Stories (Neptune) and L’il Molly in Haunted Hillbilly (Sidemart Theatrical).
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Guillermo Verdecchia (he/him) is a writer of drama and fiction as well as a director, dramaturge, translator, and actor. He is the recipient of a Governor-General’s Award for Drama for his play Fronteras Americanas and a four-time winner of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award. His work, which includes The Art of Building a Bunker (with Adam Lazarus), the Governor-General shortlisted Noam Chomsky Lectures (with Daniel Brooks), the Seattle Times’ Footlight Award-winning Adventures of Ali & Ali (with Marcus Youssef and Camyar Chai), _A Line in the Sand_ (with Marcus Youssef), bloom, and Another Country has been recorded, anthologized, translated into Spanish and Italian, produced in Europe and the US, and is studied in Latin America, Australia, Europe, and North America. His most recent work includes an adaptation of the 12th Century Sufi poem The Conference of the Birds, which was featured in Soulpepper’s audio program Around the World in 80 Plays, and A Good Place for Factory Theatre. His play Our Heart Learns played in Genoa in the fall of 2021, and he is working on a new play provisionally entitled Galicia.