Driftwood Digital Short Play Festival Launches October 22, 2021

It’s been a pretty strange year. Never would we have imagined that, nearing the end of summer 2021, we would have replaced our annual summer season of outdoor theatre with not one but three digital projects.

Driftwood audiences can already join Artistic Director Jeremy Smith as he celebrates reconnecting with people and places in Ontario with the Motorcycle Monologues and young viewers can experience the whimsical choose-your-own-adventure tale, Froxeaglousy, for free online through our YouTube channel. But we have one more very special experience to add before 2021 comes to a close: Driftwoods’ first-ever Digital Short Play Festival.

The Digital Short Play Festival collects four short plays currently in development at Driftwood and presents them for free online in digital format. Originally intended as opening-act performances prior to the Bard’s Bus Tour, all four plays were filmed over two days thanks to the generous support of the Toronto Arts Council’s Animating Toronto Parks program.

Ellen Denny’s romantically absurd So You, So I challenges a disillusioned couple to rekindle romance after tragedy bursts their idyllic existence. 

In Matthew Gorman’s Boutique Siblings, a pair of abandoned siblings hope a remarkable skill will be their chance for a better future.

Two unnamed individuals struggle with a tenuous codependency in Rebecca Lashmar’s deliciously dark Fairchild, where ethics and morals are questioned in the face of survival.

Sisters squabble in Rabiya Mansoor’s smart comedy A Jam Kind of Day after a family tragedy forces them each to come to terms with an ill-advised family business decision.  

The Digital Short Play Festival features performers Dhanish Chinniah (So You, So I; Boutique Siblings), Mina James (A Jam Kind of Day, Fairchild), Anand Rajaram (So You, So I), Gabriella Sundar Singh (A Jam Kind of Day, Fairchild) and Athena Kaitlin Trinh (Boutique Siblings).

The festival is directed by Cailleah Scott-Grimes and Jeremy Smith, with videography by Mateen Missaghi and Stella Racca, sound engineering by Ella Kohlmann, editing by Mitchell Allen, wardrobe by Carlyn Rahusaar Routledge and props by Almira Rahmati.

Driftwood’s Digital Short Play Festival will air for free on Driftwood’s YouTube channel, launching on October 22, 2021.

The Digital Short Play Festival is the culmination of a year-long process of development through Driftwood’s Beyond the Bard Playwrights Unit with dramaturgy by Caitie Graham. Driftwood’s 2021 Playwrights Unit is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.