CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: The RBC Rising Star Emerging Director Prize 2018

 

In order to encourage and celebrate our most outstanding early-career directors, as well as to provide them a forum to practice their craft with professionals in a safe environment, Crow’s is proud to invite submissions for the fourth annual RBC Rising Star Emerging Director Prize.

The prize is made possible by the RBC Emerging Artists Project which helps artists bridge the gap from academic world to career, believing that the next generation of artists, in particular, are in need of extra support. RBC supports arts and artists in a range of genres – including visual, music, theatre, dance, literature and film - through a combination of donations and sponsorships.

 

Launched in 2015, The RBC Rising Star Emerging Director Prize provides a $5,000 award to a Canadian emerging director. In addition to the cash prize, the director receives a residency at Crow’s Theatre along with project development resources, and mentorship. The award recipient will be selected on a balance of award criteria by a jury of professional artists that includes Crow’s Artistic Director Chris Abraham. The jury will take into account the merits of the emerging director’s current body of work as well as how meaningful the residency would prove to the director’s professional development. This prize and Crow’s Residency will recognize the creative potential of an up-and-coming theatre-maker, and provide the means to substantially advance their practice, by providing a resourced incubation lab for a new or existing work.

 

 

 

Founded in 1983, Crow’s Theatre is nationally recognized as an award-winning contemporary theatre company. Crow’s has toured across Canada and abroad with memorable works including Seeds, Winners and Losers, True Crime, The Wedding Party, Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, Eternal Hydra, Someone Else, The Watershed and A Short History of Night. The company seeks to ignite passionate and enduring engagement between audiences and artists by creating, producing, and promoting unforgettable theatre that examines and illuminates the pivotal narratives of our times. The company commits to a long-term artistic process, with an appropriate gestation period and multiple moments of audience engagement. Each work grows and is informed through its resonance with the public.

 

In 2017, Crow’s Theatre opened the doors of its first permanent home, Streetcar Crowsnest, a new state of the art performance facility in Toronto’s East End. Streetcar Crowsnest has become a bustling arts and community cultural hub for the residents of the neighbourhood and a beautiful venue for Crow’s Theatre.

 

Crow’s productions at Streetcar Crowsnest to date include The Wedding Party by Kristen Thomson; A&R Angels, a playwriting debut by Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene; The Boy in the Moon, Emil Sher’s adaptation of a beloved memoir by renowned journalist, Ian Brown; True Crime, a brilliant one man show by Torquil Campbell; Breath in Between, by celebrated Canadian playwright, Anton Piatigorsky; and The Emancipation of Ms. Lovely by Ngozi Paul, winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play. In addition, a carefully curated selection of outstanding quality partner productions has been presented such as Project: Humanity’s world premiere of 'Freedom Singer', Nightwood and Volcano Theatre’s 'Century Song' and Theatre Direct’s The Old Man and the River. Crow’s has also hosted productions from Toronto Masque Theatre, Soundstreams, Morro and Jasp, Outside the March and The Howland Company. In addition to theatrical productions, the space is home for music, dance, cabaret, youth classes and family programming.

 

Past recipients of this prize are Zack Russell, Rebecca Northan and Sarah Kitz.

 

Zack Russell is a Canadian theatre director and filmmaker. His short film “She Stoops To Conquer” (starring Julian Richings), premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and his direction of Jordan Tannahill’s “rihannaboi95”, earned him a Dora Award Nomination for Outstanding Direction. During his residency, Zack worked closely with Chris Abraham on Kristen Thomson’s The Wedding Party and Zack continues to work with Crow's, with his latest project being Musik fur das Ende in Fall 2017. Crow’s is investing further in projects Zack developed during his residency. 

 

Rebecca Northan is an actor, improviser, writer, director and Artistic Producer of Spontaneous Theatre. She is a Gemini-nominated TV actor and a two-time Canadian Comedy Award winner. Her one-woman show, Blind Date, was her first foray into the emerging genre of spontaneous theatre, and it has toured across Canada, the US, played off-Broadway and in London’s West End. During her residency at Crow’s Theatre, Rebecca trained a group of 40 participants in her Spontaneous Theatre method, bringing her influence and impact to a new level.

  

Last year’s recipient of the prize was Sarah Kitz. Sarah is a Toronto director, actor and writer. She has directed for the Next Stage Festival, SummerWorks, and Shakespeare In The Ruins. She is extensively involved with the AMY Project, which supports the creative trajectories of young women and non-binary youth in Toronto through arts mentorship. To date, Sarah’s twin focus lies in re-visioning classical works to recognize their current day interpretation, and in new creation. 

 

 

 

Applicants must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

 

Applicants must be practicing theatre directors for at least three years and no more than ten years. Directors of text-based or non-text-based work are invited to apply.

 

Applicants must have at least two professional directing credits. Productions at major curated theatre festivals (such as SummerWorks or Toronto Fringe Next Stage) will be accepted.

 

The Prize jury will take into account the proposed residency’s level of ambition and its transformative potential for the applicant. Equally important is the vision of the proposal and the applicant’s potential to realize the residency’s central project.

 

 

 

Each applicant should include in their nomination package:

1. An introductory letter that outlines the emerging director’s practice, experience and personal vision. This letter is to be conceived as a kind of artist statement that communicates the emerging director’s passion and the kind of work they are interested in.
2. A one-page project proposal for either one or two projects to be considered for a Crow’s Residency. The applicant should describe the proposed work-in-progress and their connection to it, its current phase of development, and in what way it could be served by a Crow’s residency. Whether the applicant chooses to put forward one or two projects, this component of the nomination package should still be limited to a total of one page.
3. A copy of the applicant’s CV
4. Two letters of support from theatre professionals
5. A maximum of 5 pages of support material. This can include production stills, reviews, or materials relevant to the central project proposed in the application. In lieu of written materials, the applicant is welcome to submit a video link. The duration of the video should be no more than 5 minutes.

 

Please submit all materials to Crow’s Theatre electronically, as a single PDF file. A shortlist of candidates will be interviewed by phone or Skype in advance of a recipient being selected.

 

The DEADLINE for all submissions is July 31, 2018. The recipient will be announced in late August 2018.

 

Please submit all materials to: submissions@crowstheatre.com

 

Should you have any questions about eligibility or application details, please contact Associate Producer Margaret Evans: margaret@crowstheatre.com