Today, we are delighted to have a visit from Celia McBride, Dave Dines and Dave Carley, who are all playwrights and have written 10 minute plays which will be twice presented at Fringe Fest on September 14th as part of Northumberland Festival of the Arts. Dave Carley is a Canadian playwright. His plays for stage and radio have had close to 500 productions across Canada and the United States, and in many countries around the world. They include Writing with our Feet (nominated for the Governor General’s Award), The Last Liberal, The Edible Woman and, most recently, Twelve Hours, and Canadian Rajah. Celia McBride is a writer and spiritual director from the Yukon now living in Port Hope. She had a 20 year career as a playwright and theatre artist. Celia published a memoir called “O My God: An Un-Becoming Journey” in 2022. Her plays have been produced across Canada and she is still writing new ones. Dave Dines is the co-owner and manager of the Ganaraska Brewery in Port Hope built by and for local people. Growing this successful business has kept him very busy since its opening in 2021 but in his spare time he writes plays.
Dave Carley
Drama at NFOTA24: episode 1
This week, Word on the Hills is delighted to have four playwrights with us to tell us about the plays they have written and will be presenting this September at Northumberland Festival of the Arts NFOTA 24. Anne Page has been a performer, writer and producer in and around the Canadian theatre scene for many years. Anne has a deep connection with Cobourg. Her parents grew up, met and married here and though they moved away frequently returned to spend time with their extended families. Peter Paylor’s plays will be produced this year in Brockville, Belleville, Elliot Lake, Port Hope, Sault Ste. Marie, and Wilberforce and Cobourg . Peter is Artistic Director for River & Main Theatre Company at Theatre in The Wings in Belleville. For over thirty years, Marcia Johnson has been a Toronto-based theatre artist, who also works in audiobooks as a director and narrator. She has written numerous plays which have been performed by companies across Canada including Stratford. At the end of last year, she was in the first cohort of playwrights to take part in the Slaight Playwrights Residency at the Banff Centre. Sean Carthew is a long-term Port Hope resident. He is the Founder and artistic Director of Port Hope’s Ontario Street Theatre, which has produced, created and performed well over 250 productions in and around Northumberland County. Sean will have two plays performed at the Port Hope Arts Festival in August and one, Go Fish, at NFOTA.
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Dave Carley
On Sunday at 1.00 pm join us to hear Dave Carley discussing his plays and telling us about his career as a playwright, director and curator. Dave’s stage and radio plays have had over 450 productions across Canada, the United States, and around the world. They include Writing with our Feet, Conservatives in Love and Midnight Madness. He has also written dramatizations of novels, including Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman; Al Purdy’s A Splinter in the Heart; and, in progress, Farley Mowat’s And No Birds Sang.
Dave’s plays often deal with human rights concerns and include Taking Liberties; The Last Liberal; and Twelve Hours. His play Canadian Rajah – first read at Wesleyville Village church – has its Asian premiere this fall in Malaysia. He has just completed a new drama, Hope is a Bird, about the elusive Ivory-Billed
Woodpecker. Dave’s radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC (UK), CBC (Canada), ABC
(Australia) and NPR (USA). He is also curating ten-minute play events for the Port Hope Festival in August and the Northumberland Festival of the Arts in September, festivalofthearts.ca
Word on the Hills Radio Program 