A moment in history: Nov. 13, 1979

On this day in 1979, Edmonton's Workshop West was celebrating its first year of developing local playwrights.

For almost half a century, Workshop West has been helping Canadian playwrights get their works down on paper and up on stage. Now a fixture of the Edmonton theatre community, Workshop West got its start with a puppet and a rented former church.

These days, works by local playwrights are a significant part of the city's theatre calendar. But in the 1970s, that wasn't the case. Productions of American and British plays made up the vast majority of productions in western Canada. Canadian plays were in the minority. Rarer still was one from an Albertan artist.

Gerry Potter was convinced that local theatre audiences would come out for local stories. Potter, who was a recent graduate of the University of Alberta with a master of fine arts degree in directing, started Workshop West with three goals: building Canada's theatre community, getting Albertan plays more time on stage, and developing new Canadian playwrights.

The small, scrappy theatre company's first funding came from a single $75 donation during its announcement party. With that windfall and later support, Workshop West set up in Espace Tournesol, a former Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city's northeast. Its inaugural season staged three productions: One Night Stand by Toronto's Carol Bolt; On the Job by Montreal's David Fennario (which featured actor Paul Gross); and Punch and Polly, a play by Calgary's Rick McNair about a woman who goes insane talking to a puppet. (Potter would later quip that the company was lucky, as it didn't need to pay the puppet.)

The ambitious group would find supporters, both artistic and financial, within Edmonton's theatre community. But it was always a scramble to survive. For a 1979 production, it relied on students from what was then Grant MacEwan Community College to build costumes and sets, as well as to run its front of house. This allowed the company to continue its quest to help Alberta playwrights develop new works and promote the work of writers such as Brad Fraser, Stephen Massicotte, Conni Massing, and Vern Thiessen, the latter of whom would eventually serve as Workshop West's artistic director.

Workshop West has had several homes over the decades, renting different locations for both its offices and its productions. In 2022, the theatre company moved into the Gateway Theatre. For the first time, it could allow playwrights to develop their plays in the same space where they would be performed.

From this new location, Workshop West continues its mission of fostering new Canadian playwriting talent, hosting programs such as the Edmonton Playwrights' Circle, which Fraser is hosting this year, and the Indigenous Playwrights' Circle, run by Josh Languedoc. Its Springboards New Play Festival last March saw the debut of Ramneek Singh's Butter Chicken Odyssey, which went on to become a Fringe sensation.

Last week, Workshop West kicked off its 48th season with Frank Moher's Boy Player, representing a homecoming for the Edmonton-born playwright, who also stars in the autobiographical tale. It's on until Nov. 15.

This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist Rev Recluse of Vintage Edmonton.