PLAYWRITERS' WORKSHOP

Join Natalie Meisner, award-winning Canadian playwright and professor of creative writing for a two-day workshop on writing for the stage.  Meisner's play about displaced workers in the oil patch, Boom Baby won the Canadian National Playwriting Competition this year and will debut at Eastern Front Theatre in April.  Her plays have been produced across the country, featured on CBC radio and published by Playwright's Canada Press.  Meisner hails from Nova Scotia, has taught creative writing at university for fifteen years and now calls Salt Spring Island her home, along with her wife and two great boys.  She brings her signature mixture of roll up your sleeves hard work, fun and gentle humour to this two-day playwriting workshop and is looking forward to working with local talent.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019 Playwriters’ Workshop  for local writers with Natalie Meisner (max. 10 participants) (2pm-4pm) An introduction to new play development in Canada, an introduction to working with a dramaturge, discussion of individual play concepts, and instruction for focused writing.  You will be given a new play generating exercise and take homework to bring back on Thursday. Thursday, August 15, 2019 Workshop your material together and engage in discussions of character, story arc, and dramatic structure.

BIO:  Dr. Natalie Meisner is a full Professor in the Department of   English, Languages, and Literature at Mount Royal and and a celebrated Canadian Author.  Her stage plays have won numerous awards, been produced across the country, and been featured in Canadian anthologies.  Her books, Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family, My Mommy, My Mama, My Brother & Me, Growing Up Salty, Legislating Love (Forthcoming, University of Calgary Press), take on social justice themes with warmth and humour.  Her collection of poetry,  Baddie One Shoe (Frontenac 2020) is an ode the renegades past and present who fight the power with laughter. Meisner's areas of specialization include creative writing, drama, theories of comedy /laughter and glbtiqa+ literatures.  She hails from Nova Scotia, has taught across the country and now calls Salt Spring Island her home, along with her  wife and two great boys