Become a Monthly Donor with afterPlay —
Our Easy Payment Plan for New Play Lovers
afterPlay makes donations affordable
so we can keep making new Canadian plays.
Benefits of using afterPlay:
> Fully customized monthly donations: set your amount to suit your budget.
> Flexible plan: change the amount, anytime.
> Reliable monthly donations that make a huge impact at WorkshopWest!
Our goal this May is to have 100 Workshop West fans join afterPlay!
No donation is too small. Your loyalty is what we value most.
We are one of the few theatre companies in Canada solely dedicated to developing and producing new Canadian plays. To remain a vital playground for new Canadian work, we need more fans like you to become donors.
For just $5/month, 100 afterPlay donors would raise $6,000 to our 2024-25 Season.
That’s an incredible collective impact we know is possible through your support.
Show your love for new Canadian theatre — donate today, through afterPlay!
Every Donation Helps Support the Production of New, Canadian, Work.
What does this mean?
Workshop West is a registered charity. Your donations help support our educational playwriting development programming for the general public and artists, and contribute to hiring playwrights, actors, dramaturgs and directors to workshop and develop new plays from the ground up. Our programs are available to the general public and artists through accessible pricing, and many programs are offered at no cost.
Why is this important?
A foundational part of a healthy arts ecology means supporting artists. Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre has a specific focus of being playwright-centred. This means we place a special importance on fostering and producing new Canadian work. There are three parts to this: development, accessibility, and fair compensation. Part of this healthy ecosystem involves development programs which help grow and nurture the next generation of playwrights. In addition, developing one’s craft or enjoying theatre as an audience member should also be accessible. Art cannot be made without an artist’s work, and we believe that artists should be compensated fairly for that work, just like any other profession. As a professional theatre company, we employ up to 50+ artists per year and pay artists according to professional standards.
Why new plays?
New plays reflect the current moment in ways older work often cannot. New plays provide rich opportunities to develop our perception of our personal agency, offering opportunities to explore ‘big’ ideas, while generating unique views of our world. Theatre promotes cultural engagement and an ability to understand and critique social life by extending the possibilities of our human experience. We believe producing new plays by living, breathing, playwrights is of vital importance to the ecology of our cultural ecosystem through supporting the artists who live in our community with practical economic realities of everyday life, like paying bills. We also believe in the importance of creative education offered to all levels of experience, including educational opportunities for the general public, youth (#Writes of Passage Teen Playwriting Program), artists-in-development, as well as professional artists.
A Donation to Workshop West = A Direct Impact on Canadian Theatre Artists
For over 40 years, WWPT has been the creative construction zone for Canadian theatre made by playwrights and their collaborators. We’ve launched and shaped the careers of many of Canada’s leading playwrights, including: Mieko Ouchi, Brad Fraser, Stephen Massicotte, Conni Massing, Vern Thiessen, Darrin Hagen, Ken Cameron, Kenneth T. Williams, Daniel MacIvor, Stewart Lemoine, Ronnie Burkett, Frank Moher, Meg Braem, Beth Graham, Nicole Moeller, and more. We play a fundamental role in showcasing and advocating for Canadian content, Canadian culture, and the voices and perspectives of all Canadians. Our plays spark vital conversations and solution-based thinking on the issues of our time.