Monday, September 13, 2010

Gailey Road: Upcoming Activities this fall

Happy September to you all.

After an extremely successful run of Harriet's House at Hart House Theatre this past July and a terrific staged reading of the play at the Queer West Festival in August, I have decided to continue writing the story of Harriet's transnational/transracial same-sex family. The second play in the Harriet's House trilogy will focus on Ana, Harriet's middle adopted from Colombia and the third play will focus on Clare, Harriet's youngest, biological daughter.

I began to work on Ana's play in August and plan to continue working on it this fall with the support of the six-week cyberwriting challenge I am running for the Women's Caucus of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. If you are a Canadian woman playwright you can join PCG's Women's Caucus and take part in the cyberwriting challenge which begins on September 27, 2010. Contact Robin Sokoloski for information on joining the PCG and the Women's Caucus.

September also brings grant proposal deadlines and I've spent the last several weeks working on a Canada Council theatre projects grant to fund the development and production of Ana's play . I'm also working on a three-year SSHRC grant proposal to fund the research component of the Harriet's House trilogy.

At the end of month, I'll be hosting a reading of my play Zero Tolerance at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education's Educating for Peace and Justice: Action for Safe and Equitable Classrooms, Schools and Communities Conference. The goal of the conference is to enable participants to share best practices related to the building of safe and equitable classrooms, schools and communities.

Julian Falconer LLB, human rights lawyer and Chair of the School Community Safety Panel, will be the keynote speaker. Zero Tolerance is adapted from Julian Falconer's report on school safety The Road to Health. The report was commissioned by the Toronto District School Board after the 2007 shooting of Jordan Manner in the hallway of his Toronto high school.

For more information about Zero Tolerance see www.gaileyroad.com. For more information about the conference, which takes place on Saturday, September 25th, 2010 from 8:30am -4:30pm, contact peaceandjustice.oise.@utoronto.ca

All the best,
Tara