Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre (STA) is looking for exciting and diverse voices for our inaugural 5-episode series of audio-dramas that will feature 5 independent stories by 5 unique writers with 5 different casts and designers.

Please note: Our first episode is currently in production and is written by playwright Gary Mok. Therefore, we will be looking for an additional 4 artists.

Each episode will:

• Have its own playwright, director and cast.
• Will be a unique story told by a Canadian writer
• Merge sound design, text-based performance, and music to create a compelling story and audio narrative that ‘sounds an alarm’ on our environmental and sociological challenges and its effects on human experience.
• Each playwright will work with our dramaturg assigned to the series as a whole.

Particulars:

• Artists must be legally able work in Canada.
• It is a priority of STA to create a platform of artists and cultural voices that represent our diverse communities. We will be prioritizing writers from marginalized communities, including Indigenous artists, people of colour, and diverse gender identifications.
• Depending on the scripts chosen, we will ensure cultural protocols are integrated as well as including additional creative team members (such as designers and casts) that align with the cultural narrative of each particular script.
• This contract will be paid at or above professional standard.
• As the series is planned to host 5 episodes, we will be featuring 5 different writers.

Each episode and script will:

• Be 25 minutes in length
• Be an audio-drama (no visual mediums integrated)
  Be developed in collaboration with dramaturg Joanna Garfinkel, who will support all drafts for the purposes of consistency in style, quality and messaging.
• Be aimed to adult audiences and cannot include profanity, overtly sexual, or violent/hateful content or themes.
• Include elements of sound/music to help shape and inform the narrative

Our goal is to create a unique immersive audio listening experience. Depending on how each story progresses, we would like to incorporate binaural sound techniques to aid in this immersive goal. This is however, not a requirement and is dependent on the artistic needs of each story itself. For a better understanding of what binaural recording is, take a look at this video, and it is suggested you wear your earphones.

Timeline:

• We will be accepting submissions until February 21, 2021
• We will announce our chosen writers likely by April 1.
• Scripts will be developed through approximately three drafts, with the final draft due by July 15, 2021.
• Production will commence in August with the release of the series beginning late October or early November.

Submission needs:

Please submit via [email protected]:

• your resume
  
  • samples of existing work of a one-two page story pitch that:
    > speaks to the series focus which is to ‘sound an alarm’ on our environmental and sociological challenges and its effects on human experience.
    > lays out the themes you wish to explore and how they relate to the ‘alarm’ of the series.
    > includes a statement indicating how you cultural and personally identify (such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or however else you feel comfortable stating and publicly speaking to)

Our first (pilot) episode is called Lost Soul Animal Rescue and is written by playwright Gary Mok. For this 25-minute audio experience, Gary has chosen to centre the story around the tradition of Chinese ghost stories which normally expound on the importance of filial piety (duty to your ancestors). In this particular creation, he has added a twist on that concept by using animal “ghosts” to question our duty to nature instead. The story is set in Vancouver.

For more information, head to our website at www.soundthealarm.ca

Jupiter Theatre’s Europa New Works Incubator Call for Submissions

What is it?

The Europa New Works Incubator (formerly the New Play Development Series) is an opportunity for established and emerging Canadian playwrights and theatre makers to workshop and receive dramaturgical support on new works that are currently in development.

Europa is among the first of Jupiter’s seventy-nine moons to be discovered, and is one of the few celestial masses in our solar system outside of earth with the potential to support life. Europa’s surface is sheeted with a thick outer crust of ice harbouring a vast ocean underneath with adequate conditions to sustain living organisms. Hemingway’s ‘iceberg theory’ offers an insight into the writer’s use of subtext and the implicit deeper meaning often found below the surface of his minimalist style of writing. Europa’s frozen exterior gives Hemingway’s iceberg metaphor an entirely new context.

With the Europa New Works Incubator, Jupiter Theatre seeks to discover new life in the unfathomable depths of Canadian playwrights and theatre makers.

What does it offer?

As part of the Europa New Works Incubator, Jupiter Theatre will offer the playwright/theatre maker feedback and support from a dramaturg hand-chosen to suit the specific stylistic and developmental needs of the project Following this one-on-one workshopping, Jupiter Theatre will facilitate a table or staged reading as part of its season to showcase the piece in its current stage of development and provide the playwright with the opportunity to hear the script read aloud. At the end of this process, the playwright will emerge with a more thoroughly realized draft of their play. We intend for the workshop to be a stepping-stone for the script to be brought to life in a future season as one of Jupiter Theatre’s MainStage productions.

Future submissions will be accepted on an ongoing basis throughout the year, though Jupiter Theatre will only commit to as many as three projects per season.

The Europa New Works Incubator aims to provide playwrights and theatre makers with the space, tools, and support to create the best possible version of their work, and encourage the creation of new Canadian theatre.

What are we looking for?

The Europa New Works Incubator is looking for bold, contemporary works that engage with or push against the genres of science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, and mythology. We are looking for new plays that explore the ‘what ifs’ of human potential, challenge the status quo, envision a new future, offer an alternative present, or that have something meaningful to say about the world we live in. We are open to projects in all stages of development and are only accepting plays that have not as of yet received a full production or publication.

Jupiter Theatre creates bold original works of Canadian theatre that are visual, physical, and moving. We seek to share powerful stories that explore the human condition and challenge audiences through visceral and innovative productions.

How to submit?

Playwrights and theatre makers interested in submitting their work are asked to send:

• A PDF draft of the work-in-progress script or project outline. Note: this draft may manifest itself as a full-length manuscript, as a collection of unfinished scenes, or as a preliminary scene breakdown for future writing or creating. If your project is not entirely text-based, we encourage you to get creative with how you present it to us!
• A one-page proposal outlining the creator’s intentions with the piece, the creative questions that are being explored in the writing, an overview of the story, why you believe it to be a good fit with Jupiter Theatre, and a brief development history of the work (if applicable).
• A current resume or CV for the leading artist(s).
• Artists involved in the Europa New Works Incubator will be paid an honorarium.

As part of our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion, and to promote equity and representation within our community, we strongly encourage and specifically welcome submissions from IBPOC, LGBTQ2IA+, female-identifying, and non-binary artists.

Deadline for submissions is January 31st, 2021 at 11:59pm. If you have a new work that you are developing and hoping to submit but meeting the deadline or fulfilling the submission criteria is, for whatever reason, an obstacle for you, we strongly encourage you to reach out to us and we will do what we can to accommodate and support you in this process.

To submit, or for more information, email Artistic Associate Constantine X. Anastasakis at [email protected].