Springboards New Play Festival unveils new plays and cabarets

After several years on hiatus, the Springboards New Play Festival is returning, and highlighting new plays from four Edmontonian playwrights and two cabaret performances.

The Springboards New Play Festival is held by Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre and began running in the 1990s. This year’s festival runs from March 22 to 27 with shows beginning every night at 7:30. A festival for theatre enthusiasts and those interested in supporting Edmonton theatre alike, the goal of this festival is to provide a behind-the-scenes look into the playwriting process as well as experiencing entirely-new play readings.

In the order that they will be showed, the first play is Fumbo by Mũkonzi wa Mũsyoki, which tells the story of a Kenyan woman who will do anything to care for her sister. Second is IN-COR-RI-GI-BLE: The Legend of Thundervoice by Josh Languedoc, a play based on the true story of two Indigenous brothers as survivors of the Sixties Scoop. The Feast of All Saints by Cat Walsh is in the genre of horror theatre, telling the story of a family that must participate in a memorial for a dead relative on Halloween. Finally, Subscribe or Like by Liam Salmon explores the relationship millennials have with the internet and growing up in capitalism.

Two cabarets will be featured. The first is Under Pressure, which features four short works by female-identifying playwrights about the brilliance that pressure inevitably makes. The second is Alive and Kicking, which is the finale to the festival, and presents 12 short excerpts from playwrights’ work.

Salmon, a playwright and and community outreach and audience relations staff, described the festival as summative of Workshop West’s mission to platform new playwrights.

“[It’s] really all about developing new Canadian work, so having this new play festival exemplifies a lot of what we believe in and what we really believe is important,” Salmon said. “There’s so much work happening in Edmonton, and to showcase those amazing writers is the dream.”

Although the Springboards New Play Festival fell out of Workshop West’s programming a few years ago, the festival has been revitalized for the current stage. Salmon explained that Workshop West had become busy with planning other play festivals, which include Black Arts Matter and Sound Off, but bringing the festival back meant a lot to Edmonton’s theatre community.

“It has that sort of memory in the Edmonton theatre community and stuck with a lot of people,” Salmon explained. “It has that history to it and I think it’s really exciting that it’s back.”

The festival is not only meant to benefit the audience, but also give playwrights valuable feedback on their work.

“Speaking as a playwright, my goal is always to have people talking at the end about the themes or what they’ve witnessed,” they said. “Playwriting is a very interesting art form … because in a lot of ways, the play doesn’t exist until it’s presented in three dimensions … The other part too is the audience response — are they laughing?”

“That’s sort of the third character. We have the text, we have reading in the room, and then we have the audience, which is always a part of theatre. Are they laughing where I thought they would? Are they surprise laughs? Are there are gasps? What is that sort of energy that is happening? And it really does inform the piece moving forward in a really essential way in theatre.”

Additionally, Salmon highlighted that they looked forward to seeing the audience reactions. They hoped that Subscribe or Like would spark conversations about growth and its connections with failure in capitalism.

Salmon explained that, though there are other play festivals that happen within the city, something that makes Springboards New Play Festival so unique is that it platforms Edmontonians.

“I feel like a lot of times in theatre, it’s difficult because you’re writing a play for [a long time], and support in that can be very challenging — financially and otherwise,” Salmon said. “So, having your work here, both having a chance to showcase it and getting paid for that work is important.”

“I feel like a lot of other play festivals often feature people outside of Edmonton, which is fine. That’s just a reality, but I think there is something really special about Springboards which is [that] it’s Edmonton playwrights’ new work. There are a lot of us … Letting the world know you exist is important as a writer.”

Tickets for the festival can be purchased on their site.