Mandate and Focus
The PCTC playwriting unit will focus on cultivating and/or further strengthening relationality, engagement and collaborative critical thinking skills in professional NL playwrights. A secondary focus will be placed on decolonizing worldviews and collective accountability as it pertains to improving intersectional awareness and cultural competency within the performing arts. Through close text reading, dramaturgical feedback and workshop discussion, playwrights will explore the social, political and historical context impacting their narrative voice, dramatic representation and theatrical opportunities in the development of their work.
PCTC believes strongly that accumulating foundational knowledge and diligent scholarship, involving extensive, independent research, is integral to responsible playwriting and subsequent dramatic arts. We are keenly aware of appropriation narratives and/or exploitative storytelling practices and intend to share knowledge with future playwrights regarding cultural and community accountability. This learned self-reflexiveness is important in fostering transformative theatre that challenges power imbalances, privileged positionality and antiquated social norms in extractive playmaking practices.