{"id":29160,"date":"2026-05-25T14:52:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/?p=29160"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:27:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T20:27:51","slug":"banff-playwrights-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/banff-playwrights-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Banff Playwrights\u2019 Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflecting on an incredible week at the Banff Playwrights Lab, the thing I am most struck by is the deep generosity of the many artists and theatre-makers I had the pleasure to meet and learn from while I was there. Playwriting is often a very solitary experience, especially early on in the writing process, and often what little contact you have with other playwrights comes through social media, where it\u2019s easy to get the sense that we must all be in competition with each other for the hearts and eyeballs of a limited audience, or the limited funding available from grants. But again and again while I was there, I got the opposite feeling\u2014 that, in fact, I am lucky enough to call myself part of a vibrant community of artists who are working together<\/em> to make Canadian theatre as strong, as exciting, and as fearless as we all know it can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got the chance to hear Yvette Nolan\u2019s stories of being a self-described \u201ctheatre rat\u201d carving her own path in the industry, Keith Barker\u2019s list of every good piece of advice he\u2019s ever been given, and Colleen Murphy\u2019s Manifesto for being a playwright in the 21st century (all in one afternoon!). I explored the worlds that each of the participating writers were creating through a session that Emma Tibaldo led using Elinor Fuchs\u2019 Visit to a Small Planet<\/em>. I listened to a Q&A with the inimitable Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. I got to expand and deepen the play I\u2019m working on with the help of Mike Payette, who ran the Emerging Playwright sessions each morning\u2026 And those were just the scheduled events!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was also able to spend much of the week in conversation with almost all of the playwrights in attendance, and was consistently blown away by how truly kind and willing to share advice everyone was. Beyond the writing guidance I received (which was a huge help and I think has set me up very well to complete the first draft of my New Words play this summer), I was also able to learn from the other artists I met there about tools for getting unstuck from writers block, practical tips for getting your work produced, advice for holding onto your own voice even when not everyone\u2019s a fan, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During meal breaks, nature walks, and even one memorable trip to the hotel pool (which started with me losing my glasses in the deep end and ended with a great conversation about grant writing and self-producing), I met and befriended so many inspiring artists, and I felt myself suddenly getting a very tangible, personal sense of where I might fit inside of the larger world of Canadian theatre\u2014 whose work I am in conversation with, who inspires me, whose shoulders have I always been riding on whether I knew it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am so grateful for the experience and I sincerely hope I get the chance to return for the full two weeks of the lab someday in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ella Kohlmann<\/strong>, Playwriting student, second year<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Theatre School of Canada wishes to thank the Banff Centre and the Playwrights\u2019 Lab<\/strong> for their invaluable collaboration and support of our students’ participation in this program.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos: Ella Kohlmann <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group photo: Rita Taylor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflecting on an incredible week at the Banff Playwrights Lab, the thing I am most struck by is the deep generosity of the many artists and theatre-makers I had the pleasure to meet and learn from while I was there. Playwriting is often a very solitary experience, especially early on in the writing process, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":29156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,1,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-non-classifiee","category-playwriting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29160"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29215,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160\/revisions\/29215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ent-nts.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}