About
the Plays:
Breakout contains five plays by young emerging playwrights
who tackle themes of forgiveness, teen suicide, self-image, cultural
assimilation, and rum running on the prairies.
The plays that came to the attention of Winnipeg-based playwright
and actor Brian Drader either through the Young Emerging
Playwrights Program run by the Manitoba Association of Playwrights
(MAP) and Prairie Theatre Exchange; a high school program called
PlayBlitz; or the Winnipeg Fringe.
To Forgive, Divine is a drama by Joseph Aragon that
challenges the Christian principal of redemption. A Catholic mother
and daughter suffer from a crisis of faith when the jailed killer of
their son/brother requests to meet them. (Staged at the Ontario Drama
Festival; Cast: 2 women, 1 man).
Shades of Brown is a drama by Primrose Madayag Knazan
that uses the Filipino immigration experience to explore cultural
assumptions, interracial dating, racism, and that elusive sense of
belonging that we call home. (Staged twice at the Winnipeg
Fringe; Cast: 3 women).
The Good Daughter is a one-act drama by Ginny Collins
that dives deep into the delicious genre of black comedy, exposing a
highly dysfunctional family of three women running rum in 1930s
Saskatchewan, as two sisters battle their hilariously malevolent
mother. (Staged at the Winnipeg Fringe; Cast: 3 women, 1 man).
PACT is a drama by David Ferber about five teens who
all have a reason to commit suicide. Painfully truthful, PACT dares
to expose teenage angst and all its terrifying, frustrating and
awkward moments with a darkly hilarious, disturbing, and ultimately
hopeful effect. The play becomes a powerful insight into young minds
and relationships. (Staged at the Winnipeg Fringe; Cast: 3 woman, 2
men).
pyg is a short, one-woman show by Rose Condo that
tells the funny and touching story of one woman's struggle with
loneliness. It follows the dating tribulations of its Bridget
Jones-like heroine, who concludes that she is better off being
herself than trying to live up to the relentlessly inauthentic
feminine ideals our culture's media imposes on us. (Staged at the
Winnipeg Fringe; Cast: 1 woman).
Breakout takes you on a journey through the minds of five
young and vibrant voices, capturing the angst and humour and heart of
a generation of playwrights grappling with that precipice between the
teen years and adulthood.
About the Editor:
Brian Drader is a Canadian actor, writer, dramaturg and
artistic administrator. He has acted in over seventy professional
theatre productions across Canada, as well as numerous films,
television projects, and radio dramas. His plays have been produced
in Canada, the United States, and Europe. He served as the Director
of Playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montréal
from 2004 to 2017, and is presently the Executive Director of the
Manitoba Association of Playwrights.