QDF Workshops 2024-2025
subverting the canon: writing plays as though race, class, gender and sexual orientation mattered.
with corrina hodgson
Subverting the Canon: Writing Plays as if Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation Mattered is an innovative workshop designed to challenge conventional storytelling and enable playwrights to craft narratives that reflect the diversity of human experience. Focusing on perspectives historically marginalized in traditional theatre, participants will explore how inclusivity and authenticity can enhance the impact of their work.
This workshop is essential to fostering a vibrant artistic community. At a time when audiences demand stories that resonate with the complexities of contemporary life, it's essential that playwrights are able to address themes of identity and social justice. By offering writers a space where they can hone their craft while exploring these crucial issues, the workshop cultivates voices capable of engaging, educating and inspiring.
In this workshop, participants will learn theory in the first two sessions with the trainer, receive a writing assignment to complete during the week, then return to theory and practice in week 2.
DETAILS
Dates: May 3,4 + 10,11 2025
Location: In person location TBD & Over Zoom upon request
Time(s): 12-4 PM
Registration Fee: $45
Number of Participants: 8
Register by may 1st at 5pm
workshop breakdown
Day 1
Introductions.
What are we subverting? Introduction to tradition story structure - 3 act structure, Hero’s Journey etc.
How is the relevance of these structures used not just in writing but in the “legitimization” of theatre at large?
Reflect on participant’s writing samples and how they may relate to these structures.
Day 2
Reflections from Day 1.
What is the “problem” with traditional structure? How does it mirror dominant ideology, which in turn reinforces it? What can we do instead?
Introduction of Epic Theatre and alternative techniques that allows critical engagement.
A writing exercise is assigned to be explored in between sessions.
Day 3
Potential for writers to share work.
Epic Theatre techniques continued - Discuss/brainstorm how these techniques might work in the scenes and monologues presented that morning.
Day 4
Outstanding questions and reflections.
Modern techniques of subversion - how historicization is being used differently and intercultural techniques of time and place.
about the facilitator
corrina hodgson
Corrina Hodgson is a chronically ill QueerCrip playwright, dramaturg, and disability activist. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Her plays have been produced across Canada and in the United States, as well as on CBC Radio One. She is a winner of the Jane Chambers International Playwriting Competition and Theatre BC's Playwriting Competition, and has been Playwright-in-Residence at the University of Lethbridge, as well as a member of the Antechamber Writer's Unit at Buddies in Bad Times and the Groundswell Writers Unit at Nightwood Theatre. She is one of the co-founders of the Rose Festival.