The Text + Tech project will improve and deepen the integration of technology into the fabric of text in Canadian playwriting. Text + Tech is a series of curated intensives between playwrights and creators of technology that can be used in theatrical production. Both creators of text (playwrights) and creators of tech (inventors of technology) are brought together at the point of creation in their disciplines and not after they have created their play or technology.
Pat the Dog Playwright Centre, in conjunction with the good folks at Quarry Integrated Communications and REAP (Research Entrepreneurs Accelerating Prosperity) at the University of Waterloo will gather in St. Jacobs March 2013 for 4 days of curated discussion and exploration. It’s our thinking that these two sets of creators rarely have a chance to meet. We will strengthen the relationship in theatre between text and tech by bringing together playwrights (text) and high-tech creators (tech) at the germ of the first idea. Our goal is for the elements of technology to be available to playwrights at inception, not as added-on design elements but as integral components that are organic to the process of creation.
It is our intent for elements of technology to become fully and dramaturgically threaded into the body of the text of a new play, developed with what is possible technologically from the outset. We want the playwright to have a true sense of what they can actually do. In essence, to free them from whatever “box” they may unwittingly have placed themselves in as they craft their text.
These conversations rarely, if at all, occur. Text + Tech will change this. Text + Tech is a creative professional playground where creators of technology and theatre have access to share each other’s expertise and insights.
A dramaturgical team will be present throughout the 4 days to record and capture the reflections and creative collisions that are anticipated to occur. These findings will be recorded in a casebook, which will be made available to playwrights and other theatre creators and practitioners.
This pilot project is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, The City of Waterloo, Quarry Integrated Communications and REAP.