By Zachary Jaimes Saint Cyr
New Plays is back at Bishop’s! This year, the festival ambitiously features a record nine student-written plays, the largest number since pre-COVID, as well as a Saturday Reading Series – all written, directed and organized by our talented students! The plays will be presented over two evenings of theatre from Oct. 1 to Oct. 4.
As always, New Plays showcases Bishop’s student talent from beginning to end: students write and submit scripts (often from the Playwriting course), direct and stage-manage, and perform. Three students are coordinating the entire festival: Fiona Tremblay, Elizabeth Clarke and me. In the first week of the fall semester, the Bishop’s University drama department ran auditions and cast the plays, starting the process of transforming student-written scripts into full productions.
Photo courtesy of Fiona Tremblay-Snelgrove
This year’s festival includes plays spanning many genres, shifting from superhero absurdism and supernatural sci-fi to murder mystery and reflections on four quick-hitting shows, ranging from Fiona Tremblay’s relationship drama If it’s Convenient and Adam Medland’s superhero farce Captain Thunder to Piper Howell’s sci-fi When A Door Closes and Rhain Piquette’s time-loop comedy Cranston’s Requiem. Night B features five more diverse pieces, presenting Juliette Trépanier’s whimsical Whimsy on the Grounds, Vallée’s campus drama Those Left Behind, Warner’s skit Dimprov, Dani Albarran’s mystery Boarding School Drama and Frankie JB’s immersive Kaleidoscope.
New to this year is the Saturday reading series, featuring an additional six plays. Student playwright Tallula Russel comments on this addition to the festival’s productions: “The reading series is a sort of radio-play done live thing, with several actors reading from scripts on music stands set on stage, with no lights or sound”. Her own play, Exodus 34:14, will be among the six read that night: “I am excited for people to experience it”.
As a first-time participant in New Plays, I took on the role of sound designer for Night A’s When A Door Closes. Working alongside lighting designer Fiona Tremblay, director Lianna Roque, and stage manager Romina Recalde, the experience has been a crash course in live timing and technical theatre. Coming from a background in corporate live sound work, managing audio and creating sound effects in a theatre setting has taught me how much weight rests on offstage precision and the use of sharp auditory cues to heighten suspense.
Leading up to opening night, student directors and actors are building these shows from the ground up without past productions to reference. In addition to acting and directing, the festival teaches students practical hands-on experience running every technical element of live theatre, putting students in charge of calling cues, designing lighting rigs, and managing crews.
The festival will be held from October 1st to Oct. 4, 2026, at Turner Theatre. Tickets are available through Lepointdevente. Come and support the arts! university life.
