PARC Announces Playwrights for 2024 Annual Playwrights Retreat 

Makram Ayache is a multiple award winning playwright, performer, director, and educator living between Alberta and Toronto. His playwriting explores representations of queer Arab
voices and aims to bridge political struggles to the intimate experiences of the people impacted by them.
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Ayache’s 2023 world premiere of The Hooves Belonged to the Deer (Tarragon Theatre with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre)  was described as “the most excitingly theatrical piece of new
writing to premiere in Toronto” by the Globe and Mail and garnered a critics pick.  Previously, The Green Line (Downstage and Chromatic Theatre) garnered four Betty Mitchell Award
Nominations, winning two including Outstanding New Play. Ayache is also the 2020 recipient of the Playwrights’ Guide of Canada’s Tom Hendry Award for Harun. He has also
been nominated for four Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards for his plays Harun (2018) and The Green Line (2019) in Edmonton, Alberta.
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Alongside writing, Ayache directs and performs, with his upcoming directing role of Sheridan College’s 2025 graduating class for a musical adaptation of his play Small Gods (at the Start
of the World).

I was born on PEI in 1949. My parents moved the family to the States a few years later, but we returned to PEI every summer. In my mid 20s I returned to the Maritimes for good, living at first on PEI and working as a reporter for several newspapers, as well as freelancing for the CBC. I and my young son moved to to Halifax where I lived for the next 35 years, raising two sons and teaching various ages, and ending up as an adjunct prof of English at Saint Mary’s university. We continued to spend summers in PEI until I retired at 65 and returned to PEI permanently.

I’ve been writing various things during these years of my retirement, a memoir, and a novel, short
stories, poems, and short nonfiction pieces, as well as a number of essays which I have read at various open mic events. I also wrote an internet blog called Meanderings of an amateur PEI herbalist for a few years that had to do with medicinal herbs I found growing in the ditches on my daily rambles with
the dog. I submitted pieces to the Island Literary Awards two years in a row, and won a second prize the first year, 2016, and a first prize the second year in 2017. In the fall of 2021, I read an essay along with the Island’s poet laureates (past and present) at an Arts Festival held at Confederation Centre. I also read a tribute to the amazing Ker Wells (co-founder of the Clyde River Festival) at his memorial service in 2021.

At 70 years old, I wrote my first play Homeward (a comic version of The Odyssey), and it was read at the Island Theatre Festival in the spring of 2020, and a second excerpt of Homeward (with Bill McFadden playing Teiresias) was read and performed at “Fridays at the Fringe” later that summer. Both Homeward and Deenie’s Exit originated at playwriting workshops run by Mike Geither in 2018 and 2019. Deenie’s Exit was performed to sold out audiences at the PEI Fringe Festival in 2021. A dramatic reading of my next play Say You’re Sorry was performed in Charlottetown in the summer of 2022 and it was chosen for
the Fresh from The Island theatre festival held in the fall of 2022 with a reading at Kings Playhouse. The following year I collaborated with my son Matt on a play called Forest World which was performed at the Halifax Fringe Festival in the summer of 2023.

Goddess of Nearness is my most recent endeavor.

Playwright, Kris Williams, lives and writes in Charlottetown, PEI. Kris’s play Elmsdale was selected for the PARC supported 2023 Fresh From The Island Festival at King’s Playhouse in Georgetown, PEI. There the play was workshopped for four days and given a staged theatric reading to the public.

Kris studied English Literature in Victoria, BC, and then went on to study photography in Dublin, Ireland. He spent most of his 20’s hustling money to buy theatre tickets, and when he couldn’t afford it, he snuck in. He remains a passionate theatre goer and is inspired by the great diversity of stories that
are being told from coast to coast.

His own realist plays explore the nuanced politics of small towns, family history, collective trauma, and the decaying working class.

Rooks’s career thus far has involved many wonderful people, a few sacred places and a lot of joy. He is one half of Think Of The Worst Theatre Company with the extraordinary Sara Graham.

His writing is heavily influenced by the personal and the political – Rooks believes that theatre must be necessary to the here and now. His writing is infused with silly, flawed and multi-dimensional characters and themes. 

Rooks produces, writes and directs queer children’s radio plays adapted from Arnold Lobel’s writing (Frog and Toad Are Together: Ice Cream, A Swim, Cookies). A Swim was published in an academic journal in 2018 titled Canon issue 3. Rooks’s plays for adults include: Oy Vey, My Baby’s A They, Booby Trap! and a co-creation with Coral Maloney and Blaze Fraser titled Into The Out Of, or ITOO. 

Rooks is deeply excited to take his play Oy Vey, My Baby’s A They into its final stages of development at the 2024 PARC retreat. Rooks has been working on this script since 2018 and has been supported in his writing process by many incredible people and organizations including Dr. Roberta Barker and Hannah Moscovitch at Dalhousie University, Jordi Mand and the support of Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Mentorship Program, Makram Ayache and the Tarragon Theatre’s Young Playwrights Unit, Lara Lewis and Coral Maloney as dramaturges, Emily Dickinson as Editor, Arts Nova Scotia, Eastern Front Theatre’s Early Stages Festival, and Meg Hubley with The Bus Stop Theatre’s Writer’s Circle. 

As a theatre artist more generally: Rooks has worked with Zuppa Theatre Co. (This is Nowhere, F.I.S.H.), 2b Theatre (The Bridge), DaPoPo Theatre in association with Shakespeare by The Sea (Queer Theatre Ensemble: Shakesqueer), Neptune Theatre (Boys, Girls, and Other Mythological Creatures, Jabber) and Ship’s Company Theatre (Good Grief). The majority of his career has focused on the development of new works with Zuppa Theatre (F.I.S.H.) Villain’s Theatre (M: The Berlin Murders, Isolate Nights, Scene of the Crime, International Waters, Knight of The Bat, Rain on The Parade, and Beginner’s Guide To The Night Sky), Trisha Dhar Malik (Water, Baby!), and It’s Gonna Be Great Theatre (A Monster’s Journey). Rooks has recently started working for Penguin Random House Canada as an audiobook director – his first book is The Sins On Their Bones by Laura R. Samotin, and is set for release this May.

Identity: Rooks is a white, jewish, trans/non-binary and neurodivergent theatre artist settler who “owns” a home in Taqamiku’jk, Mi’kma’ki, and is starting to grow a very small beard thank you very much.

My eclectic background encompasses various performance and creation modalities. I have worked in numerous countries as a dancer, actor, director, Artistic Director (Caravan Theatre), content creator, instructor, writer, theatre-for-social-development facilitator, and spoken word performer.

As a theatre artist, my passion focuses on collaborative devising that explores the interplay between embodied movement, sound and text. I am also fascinated by the symbiotic relationship between social justice and the Arts. Finally, I love to explore the exchange and dialogue between performer-change activator and audience-witness: who makes meaning; who communicates meaning? And how does the sensed flow back and forth between audience and performers activate their shared space and shape meaning?

The exploration of open, shared narrative rooted in movement, image, voice and text is an ongoing focus in my work. I have a long history of facilitating and participating in performer-led collaborative devising. I love to explore the liminal space where voice, image, movement and text inform each other in scripting performance.

Much of my work has been overseas through Caravan Theatre, the company I founded that has taken me to a New Delhi slum, where I worked with dancers, drummers and puppeteers to craft stage shows for touring at European festivals, to Thailand where I taught improvisation to theatre school students, and to Syria where I facilitated social activism Arts projects with Palestinian youth.

Since my return to rural Nova Scotia in 2012, I have worked to build a presence for Caravan Theatre as a company that works to explore the theatrical possibilities of ensemble performance rooted in movement and image supported by text. Caravan collaborators share an interest in non-literal, lyrical and innovative theatre.

My training includes various movement modalities: Suzuki Technique, 5 Rhythms Dance, Viewpoints, Butoh, Ruth Zaporah, Embodied Voice and Choreopoetry. Training in dance styles include belly dancing, flamenco, salsa, contemporary dance, Bollywood, as well as improvisational movement.

Influences on my career have included the following: Ruth Zaporah and her groundbreaking work in Action Theatre wherein movement leads and informs text. Margo Charlton and the activist work of The Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba, including the  Bread and Roses festival (1985). My work with PTAM honed my skills in group facilitation and collaborative devising, as well as sparked my interest in social justice issues. Other early mentors in my career were Albert Laveau at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, who shaped my directing skills, and Goran Cvetkovic at Krsmanovitch Theatre, who furthered my movement skills. Additionally, the opportunity of teaching at 3 universities (in Trinidad, Syria and Thailand) allowed me to expand my exploration of improvisation, dance and physical theatre forms. Further, my work in a New Delhi slum with traditional artists, including the drummer/dancer, Raj Bhatt, the puppeteer, Lucky Bhat, and the magician, Mohammad Hamid, challenged me to explore collaborative points of connection between actors, dancers, magicians, puppeteers and musicians.

I have also applied my skills to various projects that involved collaborative  devising across a group of multi-disciplinary artists. Two Fabulous Flights of Fancy (2009) mixed acrobatic arts with dance and poetry. Doctor Concoctor and Poetry and Motion (2003, 2010, 2014) mixed found puppetry, mime, dance and lyrical text. 4.48 Psychosis (2020) was born of physical theatre and object manipulation. Salome Seen involved collaboration between dancers, theatre artists and a composer. Captain of My Ship (2017) mixed physical theatre and spoken word poetry while A Child’s Christmas in Wales (2015, 2016) brought theatre artists and musicians/singers together.

Troy Ginter is a member of PARC, but relatively new to playwriting. He has little to no formal training to be doing so, but he really does gobble up as much local theatre as possible, learning what he can along the way. Troy was born in Halifax / Kjipuktuk, raised in Cape Breton / Unama’kik, and smartened up by travel. He returned to his birthplace in 2018, shortly after taking in a play for the first time at age 40.

Troy has taken part in the Halifax Fringe Festival with shows in 2019, Great Kettle for the People, a staged reading in 2021, of I Love How They Love the Sun, and another in 2022, Caught by the Catcher, where he also participated in the 30-day playwriting challenge
hosted by Hali Fringe and PARC, when he wrote 10AN10NA.

Troy’s first play, Great Kettle for the People, will be produced by the Theatre Arts Guild at the Pond Playhouse
this fall 2024.

Neomi Iudit (b.1998) is an emerging theatre artist based in Fredericton. Through acting, directing, and writing, she looks to create work that feel both intimate and unexpected. Her
site-specific play, Concrete & Plaster, was done as a staged reading at the 2021 NotaBle Acts Theatre Festival (dir. Madigan Donovan-Downs), and will be produced through Rebel Femme Productions as part of Flourish Festival in 2024. She has written for creative collaboration projects with Rebel Femme Productions and Next Folding Theatre Company, and acted in many productions, including Falling Iguana Theatre Company’s 81 Minutes in 2021 and 2022.
Most recently, she directed Us Soliscent Seeds, an eco-horror audio drama created by Carlee Calver and McKenna James Boeckner for CHSR Fredericton, and performed a new monologue
at the JRG Society’s Disability Atlantic Arts Symposium 2024 Cabaret. Driven by her experience as a racialized immigrant and a Queer and disabled artist, Neomi is working to build a practice that prioritises the autonomy and perspectives of marginalised people in
creative spaces.

Stephen Massicotte’s play Mary’s Wedding premiered in 2002 at the Alberta Theatre Projects’ play Rites Festival and was the winner of the 2000 Alberta Playwriting Competition, the 2002 Betty Mitchell Award, and the 2003 Alberta Book Award.

His play The Oxford Roof Climber’s Rebellion premiered as a co-production between the Tarragon Theatre and the Great Canadian Theatre Company and was a hit off Broadway. His play, The Clockmaker, premiered at the Alberta Theatre Projects’ 2009 play Rites
Festival and won the 2009 Betty Mitchell Award for Best New Play and the 2011
Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best English Language Play.

Stephen wrote the feature films The Dark and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning, the award winning short film June and, Historica Canada’s Winnipeg Falcons and Nursing Sisters Heritage Minutes. Most recently, he wrote and produced the feature film How We Ended Us.

Nicole Obiodiaka (she/her) is the founder of Centra , an organization committed to curating cultural experiences through theatre & film. She is the playwright for Beauty Behind the Norms which was read at the 2024 Women’s Work Festival. She cowrote & directed Blank Page, An African love story. She has starred in various theatre plays in her home country – Lagos, Nigeria. Where she also performed spoken words. Nicole is passionate about celebrating black culture through theatre and multi-sensory cultural experiences.

Sobia Shaheen Shaikh is a creative writer, playwright, community organizer, and academic committed to using her work to challenge systemic injustice. Centring anti-racist, feminist, and social justice themes, her writing and artistic endeavors aim to illuminate marginalized voices, encourage dialogue, and inspire transformative action. She serves as a community volunteer in several local and
national organizations. Sobia is a founding member of the Anti-Racism Coalition NL, The Quilted Collective of Racialized NL Writers, and the Creators’ Collective NL: Indigenous, Racialized and Migrant Artists and Arts Workers. Sobia is currently working on a play commissioned by TODOS Productions, Braiding Peonies.