PARC Announces Playwrights for 2026 Annual Playwrights Retreat (Pan-Atlantic/National)

Marie Beath Badian is an award-winning Filipino-Canadian playwright and writer based in Toronto, Ontario. Her plays include The Waltz, Prairie Nurse, The Best Friend Blanket Fort Show, The Making of St. Jerome, Mind Over Matter, and Novena.

A two-time alumna of The Banff Playwrights Lab, Marie Beath joined its faculty as Playwright in Residence in 2024. She has developed work through the playwright units of Cahoots Theatre Company, Tarragon Theatre, Soulpepper Playwrights Circle, and The Factory Theatre, and has served as Playwright-in-Residence at fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company, Project:Humanity, and The Blyth Festival. Prairie Nurse and The Waltz form the first two parts of a multi-generational trilogy spanning fifty years and set in rural Saskatchewan. The third play, The Cottage Guest, is currently in development.

www.mariebeath.com

Dan Bray is a multidisciplinary artist who has somehow managed to eke out a living in the arts, not to mention one that occasionally lets him use the word “eke.” As founder and artistic director of The Villains Theatre, he has created and staged more than 25 original works and adaptations. Most recently, his mystery Deepwater (which he developed at the PARC retreat in 2022) won the Playwrights Guild of Canada Drama Award and the Robert Merritt Theatre Award for “Outstanding New Play.” Dan has been fortunate to work with many of Nova Scotia’s finest theatre companies as a playwright, director, educator, actor, dramaturg, and more, and his original plays have been produced across Canada.

Currently, he is writing a musical adaptation of Beauty and the Beast for their upcoming summer season, as well as preparing Deepwater for its Neptune Theatre remount. He received his Masters in Drama from the University of Toronto.

Brynn Cutcliffe is a playwright and director from PEI who loves to turn the world upside down in their work, in order to better understand it right side up. Their plays have been produced at Smile Theatre, the Island Fringe Festival, the Fundy Fringe Festival, and the Halifax Fringe Festival, and featured at festivals such as Brave New Works (Theatre Aquarius), Fresh From the Island (Kings Playhouse/Young at Heart Theatre), and Women’s Work Festival (RCA Theatre). In 2023, their play THE PRICK received the PARC Award and Patron’s Pick at the Island Fringe Festival, and their play Waiting for Her was the winner of Toronto Fringe’s 24 Hour Playwriting Contest. In 2025, THE PRICK was awarded Outstanding Solo Show at the Halifax Fringe Festival.

Brynn was the Playwright in Residence at Watermark Theatre in 2024-2025, and is currently a member of PARC’s inaugural Pan Atlantic Emerging Playwrights Unit. When they’re not making theatre, they can usually be found drinking coffee, eating soup, reading, or torturing their friends with bad puns.

Cole Hayley is a writer from Elliston, Newfoundland and Labrador. He is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and an alumnus of Memorial University of Newfoundland. He was the recipient of the 2023 Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award, and a two-time winner of the Arts and Letters award.

He was a member of the inaugural Poverty Cove playwrights’ unit, the IATI Theatre Cimientos Unit, and has attended both Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal’s Gros Morne Residency, as well as the BANFF Playwrights Lab.

Lindsay Kyte is a Nova Scotian playwright & performer with a Masters of Theatre from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, where Paul McCartney gave Lindsay her degree. Lindsay has sung/acted on many stages /screens (Charlottetown Festival, Neptune, Tweed & Co., Classic Theatre, Festival Antigonish, Murdoch Mysteries).

Her play Tompkinsville won awards for “Outstanding Score” and “Outstanding Production.” Toronto Adventures was produced by Festival Antigonish, Victoria Playhouse, and Grand Bank, and Open Casket Open Mic was premiered by Victoria Playhouse. Rita MacNeil’s Estate chose Lindsay and Mike Ross (Soulpepper) to create Dear Rita, premiering at the Charlottetown Festival and produced by Savoy Theatre, Neptune, Tweed & Co, and Terra Bruce, winning awards for “Outstanding Score,” “Outstanding Ensemble,” & “Outstanding Musical Direction,” and named “Outstanding Concert Show” by Entertain This Thought. Lindsay has two new shows with music in development for 2026, and is part of female vocal trio The Audacities.

Brianna Lyttle (she/her) was born with a love for stories which she has taken with her to Fredericton. She developed a passion for writing stories in her Language Arts classes in grade three, later falling in love with acting through playing Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother and a superhero with knock-out flowers in middle school. With a love for acting and writing, it was only a matter of time before the playwriting bug bit her!

She has gone on to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, at which she has just completed her second year taking on an Interdisciplinary Studies major in Fine Arts (Musical Theatre) and English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She has served as a staff writer at the STUdent newspaper The Aquinian for the past two years. Recent performance credits include Pippin with STU Musical Theatre, Footloose and The Sound of Music with Branch Out Productions, and A Voice in the Dark: A Salem Story with Black Box Productions. She hopes to make a positive impact through her storytelling both on stage and with her laptop keyboard.

Lydia Makaga is a Tanzanian-born, St. John’s based multidisciplinary artist working across theatre, film, and music as an actor, playwright, director, and producer. Her storytelling is rooted in diasporic experiences and the lives of complex women, often exploring themes of power, love, and silence. Lydia’s work blends wit with confrontation, creating pieces that are funny and politically sharp. Whether she’s developing a script, stepping into a role, or producing a project, she believes art should challenge, move, and spark conversation.

A modern playwright with a classic touch, Jena McLean (she/they) is a queer artist with roots in New Brunswick and Alberta. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s playwriting program and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Drama studies from Mount Allison University. They taught the Advanced Script Workshop at St. Thomas University and currently serve as the Membership & Communications Coordinator for Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre.

Jena was recently Theatre New Brunswick’s Artist-in-Residence, where they spent time developing a TYA edition of their play A Canyon Contained, which toured with TNB’s Young Company. Other recent work includes Like Confetti, How to Give Yourself a [Redacted], MFG (Magical Fat Girl), the collective creation Mythes Analogues and Until Tenth Grade (staged reading, dir. Dean Fleming, Geordie Theatre, 2021). Her play Bonus Points if You Have Air Conditioning was directed by Andrew Kushnir in 2021 as part of NTS’s New Words Festival and later developed as part of TNB’s Fall Festival of New Plays, with direction and dramaturgy by Kat McCormack. Jena’s play An Ocean of Evergreens was directed by Yvette Nolan during Theatre New Brunswick’s 2020 Fall Festival of New Plays and was later submitted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

As a dramaturge, Jena has worked with Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre, offering support to Iris Rhian during the 2025 Playwrights’ Retreat. They were the 2024 Playwright-in-Residence for the NotaBle Acts Theatre Festival, working with playwrights to develop fourteen scripts. Other recent dramaturgical collaborations include Tiger Lilies and Lobster Girls (Iris Rhian), Horse Girls (Jessie Walker), The Breakthrough (Patrick Jeffrey), and The List (Hilary Wheeler). Jena is driven to create work that is rich with complex roles for queer folks and young women. Her plays personalize the political and create space for those who feel unseen in theatre. She is a Sagittarius with a penchant for reality television.

GaRRy is a multi-award winning composer, lyricist, performer, educator, and theatre maker. He studied literature, theatre and music at the FU Berlin, Manhattanville College, and Mt. Allison University. He is the Artistic Director of DaPoPo Theatre and co-administrator of the collaborative arts-hub The Nest.

Select credits as Lyricist/Composer: Beauty and the Beast (Shakespeare by the Sea, in development); Rain On the Parade (co-lyricist with Evan Brown, Villains Theatre); The Wizard of Oz (Shakespeare by the Sea); The FEAR Project (co-creator with Kristi Anderson); KAMP (Eastern Front Theatre/Neptune Theatre); King of Berlin (co-lyricist with Kristin Slaney, Doppler Effect); Pinocchio (Shakespeare by the Sea); So… What About Love? (co-written with Andrew Chandler and Amy Reitsma, Atlantic Fringe Festival); Supermoms! (Mountainview Church).

As Composer: The River Clyde Pageant 2023-26 (River Clyde Arts); Crypthand (Ship’s Company, Gale Force Theatre); Twelfth Night (Shakespeare by the Sea); Edward II and The Jew of Malta (Villains Theatre).

As Book Writer: The FEAR Project (co-creator with Kristi Anderson); So… What About Love? (co-written with Andrew Chandler and Amy Reitsma, Atlantic Fringe Festival); Supermoms! (Mountainview Church); That’s Our Job! (Mountainview Church); The Little Things You Do Together (Mt. A).

As a Playwright: The HAL Project (in development, co-creator with Luke Hathaway, Hal Rotman et al.); Malleus Maleficarum (in development), Jesus Is A Faggot (DaPoPo Theatre, Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival).

As Performer: Uncle Henry/Gate Keeper in The Wizard of Oz (Neptune Theatre); Thomas in Casey & Diana (Neptune Theatre); Polonius/Grave Digger in Hamlet (Shakespeare by the Sea); The Miracle Man (Two Planks and a Passion); George in Sunday in the Park With George (DaPoPo Theatre); Isaac in A Tournament of Lies (Us vs Them).

Other: The Drinking Game (co-creator, DaPoPo Theatre); Café DaPoPo (co-creator, DaPoPo Theatre).

Kris Williams is a Charlottetown PEI, based playwright and screenwriter. His most recent play, Where It’s Too Deep To See won the PARC award at the 2025 Island Fringe Festival. He attended the 2024 PARC Playwright’s retreat where he developed his play Elmsdale, which had a two-night theatrical reading at The Guild in Charlottetown. Kris was also selected for the Fresh From The Island Festival at King’s Playhouse in Georgetown, PEI, in 2023. Kris created and wrote the upcoming Bell comedy tv series A Lick And A Prayer that will debut on Bell Fibe TV1 in May 2026. He was recently selected for the 2026 PARC Playwright’s Retreat where he will continue to develop his play Where It’s Too Deep To See.