READ UP ON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Looking for creative training that fits your life (and your schedule)? Want to learn from artists who are actually out there? Ready to make something you’re proud of—with guidance?

Live, Online Courses.
Hands-On Arts Training.
Industry-Led Instruction.
Where creative education meets professional practice.

Upcoming Courses

WRITE FOR THE ROOM:
Collaborating with a Creative Team with Weyni Mengesha

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Dates: Mondays November 9 - December 7, 2026 (5 sessions)

Time: 6:30-9:00pm EST on Zoom

Fee for participants: $325

Subsidized spots are available.

Application Deadline: October 30, 2026

This five-week course examines the dynamic between a writer’s vision and the collaborative process through which a work is realized. We will explore how writing is interpreted and transformed by actors, directors, and designers, and how the encounter between different artistic perspectives can reveal new dimensions of a story. 

Through discussion, close examination of scenes, practical writing exercises, and the sharing of work in progress, we will investigate the interplay between text and performance, with particular attention to visual language, theatricality, and the expressive potential of image, movement, space, and silence. We will consider the productive tensions that arise in collaboration, how to engage critically with feedback and differing interpretations, and how to remain open to discovery while sustaining the integrity of one’s artistic vision. 

The course offers an opportunity for playwrights and screenwriters to interrogate their creative processes, challenge established instincts, and explore the possibilities that emerge when a work moves beyond the page and into the hands of other artists.

  • Weyni Mengesha is an award winning stage and screen director known for her groundbreaking work and community engagement. She previously served as the Artistic Director of Soulpepper Theatre and has directed critically acclaimed productions that have toured nationally and internationally including Da kink in my hair, Kim’s Convenience, and Treemonisha. She has also directed in London, NYC and LA, garnering two NAACP nominations and has received nominations and awards from the Dora’s (Toronto), Drama League (NY), and Drama Critics Circle (LA). A committed educator, mentor, and a producer of youth arts initiatives.  She was the co-director of Artists Mentoring Youth (the A.M.Y Project) for 7 years and has taught at the Soulpepper Academy, the National Theatre school of Canada, the Canadian Film Centre and The Banff Centre for the Arts. 

SAY IT WITH A SONG:
The Basics of Musical Theatre Song Writing with Britta Johnson

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Dates: Tuesdays November 10 - December 1 + Monday December 7, 2026 (5 sessions)

Time: 6:30-9:00pm EST on Zoom

Fee for participants: $325

Subsidized spots are available.

Application Deadline: November 1, 2026

This course will focus on the power of music and song to explode and deepen your storytelling. We will discuss musical theatre dramaturgy, bookwriting, song structure, song spotting, lyric writing and the many expansive ways to use music to tell a story.

Participants can be text-based (playwrights, lyricists, novelists) or musicians (songwriters or otherwise) but everyone will be asked to try their hand at scene-work and lyric writing (generating music will be optional!)

  • Britta Johnson is a composer, lyricist and writer based in Toronto. Her original musical LIFE AFTER (for which she wrote book, music and lyrics) had an extended, multiple Dora Award-winning production at Toronto’s Berkeley St. Theatre before playing at the Old Globe in San Diego, the Goodman in Chicago and Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre. Her other writing credits include: With her sister Anika Johnson: JACOB TWO-TWO MEETS THE HOODED FANG (Coming up this season at the Stratford Festival); DR. SILVER (Outside the March/South Coast Rep). With Sara Farb, KELLY V. KELLY (Musical Stage Co./CanStage, winner of the Playwright’s Guild of Canada Best New Musical award). With Katherine Cullen: STUPIDHEAD! (TPM). She was a co-creator of Tim Hortons’ 60th Anniversary musical, THE LAST TIMBIT which opened at the Elgin Theatre in the Summer of 2024 before streaming nationwide on CraveTV. She was the inaugural Crescendo Artist with Musical Stage Company which included a commitment to produce three of her shows in three years and was named one of Fifty to Watch by the Broadway Women’s Fund of America. She teaches musical theatre writing at Sheridan College and proudly co-runs Toronto’s Belt Choir, a musical theatre drop-in choir focussed on fun and community.

“This workshop took one of the most ambitious art forms and made it feel manageable and practicable.”

- Past Participant

SELF STARTER:
Self-Producing for Artists with Julia Nish-Lapidus

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Dates: Wednesdays November 18 - December 16, 2026 (5 sessions)

Time: 7:30-10:00pm EST on Zoom

Fee for participants: $325

Subsidized spots are available.

Application Deadline: November 6, 2026

How do you get a passion project from a dream to a reality? This hands-on course will develop your self-producing skills, step by step, on any budget. 

Explore self-producing from start to finish, including how to budget, raise money, market and promote, and manage the variable elements of making a play happen, all while maintaining your artistic work on the project you’re so passionate about! 

Sessions will include both talks and practical exercises, sharpening your expertise in this invisible, but necessary part of theatre making.

  • Julia Nish-Lapidus is a producer, director, and Dora-nominated actor, as well as a Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Toronto’s Shakespeare BASH'd (two-time Best Site Specific Theatre Company, NOW Magazine). She has produced with budgets ranging from $100 to $300,000, all while continuing to work as an artist, often on the projects she’s producing. She has produced all of Shakespeare BASH’d’s over 20 sold-out runs, worked as the Managing Director of Common Boots Theatre, and served as a producing mentor for the Toronto Fringe Festival. She is also the Co-Artistic Director of the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival in Prescott, ON.

DEFINITELY NOTHING DEFINITIVE:
5 Potentially Useful Concepts for Writing a Play with Nicolas Billon

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Dates: Mondays November 23 - December 21, 2026 (5 sessions)

Time: 7:30-10:00pm EST on Zoom

Fee for participants: $325

Subsidized spots are available.

Application Deadline: November 11, 2026

Ask ten playwrights, “How do you write a play?” and you’ll get ten different answers. Why? Theatre’s been around for (literally) ages! Film and TV writers have oodles of how-to books and formulas they can just plug their story beats into, right? Get your hero to embark on a journey to save a cat or something?

What’s the equivalent for writing a play?

I don’t have a clue.

What I do have are 5 playwriting concepts that have served me well over the years. I’ll share them in this course with the hope they’ll resonate with you and be of service to your own writing process. 

Each class will involve a mix of theory, examples, and hands-on exercises. There will also be (optional) homework.

  • Nic’s literary vocation surfaced at the age of six, when he wrote and illustrated a story on index cards about a rampaging robot. He stapled the cards together and sold “Le Robot” to his mother for a tidy profit.

    Today, his work is known for its challenging subject matter blended with humour, twists, and deep humanism.

    The Elephant Song, Nic’s first play, premiered at the Stratford Festival in 2004; it has since been produced around the world and was made into a feature film in 2014. Several of his other plays, most notably Iceland and Butcher, have had major productions across Canada and internationally; his most recent, The Neighbours, was a critical and audience hit at Tarragon this past season.

    Accolades include a Governor-General’s Award for Drama, a Canadian Screen Award, a Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Award, and two Dora Awards.

“An intensely worthwhile and practical approach to playwriting offered by a renowned playwright.”

- Past Participant

Past Workshops

  • THE LEAP: Expanding from Playwriting into TV Writing with Anusree Roy

  • ME, IRL: Turning Awkward Life Moments into Sketches with Aurora Browne

  • SAY IT WITH A SONG: The Basics of Musical Theatre Writing with Britta Johnson

  • Queer Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor

    PLAY FINDING: Discovering Your Play in Your Own Story with Daniel MacIvor

  • PLAYWRITING 101: Getting to a First Draft with Erin Shields

  • WRITER’S ROOM: Idea/Pitch/Pilot: A 3-Day TV Writing Intensive with Fab Filippo

  • REALLY EFFECTIVE WEAPON: Writing Comedy with Mark Crawford

  • OH. THEY’RE SUDDENLY SINGING: How Musicals and Narrative Songwriting Work with Kevin Wong

  • Black Canadian writer Leah-Simone Bowen

    MIC DROP: From Playwriting to Podcasting with Leah-Simone Bowen

  • INDIE CINEMA: Making Movies No Matter What with Sook-Yin Lee

  • SLIDING OVER TO THE MIC: How to adapt your craft to perform behind the mic with Dee Shipley

  • FIND YOUR FUNNY: Crafting Your Comedic Voice with Ali Hassan

  • WRITING FOR MUSIC THEATRE: A Step by Step Guide with Beau Dixon

  • Canadian screenwriter Fab Filippo

    WRITER’S ROOM—Idea/Pitch/Pilot: A 3-Day TV Writing Intensive with Fab Filippo

  • CRITICAL THINKING:  The role of theatre criticism & how to use it with Glenn Sumi

  • WORKING TOGETHER: An Agent & Playwright, in Conversation with Colin Rivers & Marcus Youssef

  • CREATE YOUR OWN RESIDENCY: A Resource for Playwrights, Directors, and Creators with Amiel Gladstone

  • SMALL SCREEN, BIG STAGE: A Crash Course in TV Writing for Playwrights with Chloé Hung

  • PERFECT PITCH: How to present touring projects, productions, and scripts to Artistic Directors with Jillian Keiley

  • CRIME STORY: How to Tell Compelling and Engaging True Crime Podcasts with Kathleen Goldhar

  • ONLY THE TRUTH IS FUNNY: or, Everything You Wanted to Know About Writing a One Person Show but Were Afraid to Ask, with Sandra Shamas

  • FROM SCRIPT TO SOUNDWAVES: Harness the Power of Podcasting

  • MUST WATCH: Writing TV Drama with Greg Nelson

  • START HERE: Introduction to Playwriting with Keith Barker

  • PLAYFINDING: Discovering Your Play In Your Own Story with Daniel MacIvor

  • HORIZONTAL: Writing Towards a Theatrical Event with Jillian Keiley