NeXtFest Anthology: Plays from the Syncrude NeXt Generation Arts Festival

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

The Syncrude NeXt Generation Arts Festival showcases the talents of
emerging professional artists in theatre, film, music, dance, and visual
art. The NeXtfest Anthology contains five plays that were presented at
the festival in the last five years.

“Super Ed,” by Chris Craddock, is a funny and touching
coming-of-age story. Rosemary Rowe’s “Benedetta Carlini” explores
questions of faith, mysticism, sexuality, and acceptance as it follows
the progress of two young women who are engaged in competing women’s
studies projects. “No, Please,” by Sean Callaghan, evokes a rigidly
regimented futuristic world within which the author explores the impact
of changing technologies on human relations. “The Key to Violet’s
Apartment,” a monologue by Paul Matwychuk, explores the ironies of
gender expectation and the magic of difference. The final play, Daniel
Arnold and Medina Hahn’s poignant and humorous “Tuesday and
Sundays,” is based on an actual love story that took place on Prince
Edward Island in 1887.

The playwrights represented in this highly entertaining collection are
just starting out, but they are the future of Canadian theatre.