Featured Playwright — Kristen Da Silva
Each month we interview member playwrights to share their work, stories and inspiration with the community. We recently spoke with Kristen Da Silva, an actor, writer and director.
Her plays, which include Where You Are, Hurry Hard, The Rules of Playing Risk, Sugar Road and Beyond the Sea, have been produced across Canada, in the United States and Europe. She is a two-time recipient of the Playwrights Guild New Comedy award, her work has been translated into four languages and she is published by Scirocco Drama.
Tell us how you got your start writing plays.
I was taking a first year acting-for-non-majors class at York University taught by Fred Thury, who also ran Vanier College Productions. A couple of months into the semester he pulled me aside and asked me to join the cast of a sketch comedy company he was forming on campus. The cast had been working together for some time by then, developing original sketches and performing them in a weekly show across from the Open End pub, but they were looking to add a couple more women. That was really my entry into writing comedy. Later, Fred launched a playwriting competition. By then I was pretty used to taking creative risks, so I wrote my first play and submitted it. It was selected for full production and I can still feel the giddiness I felt sitting in the audience the night it opened. I knew I’d come back to playwriting and I did, thirteen years later.
You are primarily a writer of comedy, and some have compared you to Norm Foster. Why does the genre appeal to you, and what are some of the challenges and rewards of writing comedy for the theatre?
I think the appeal is the same now as it was when I was writing shorter form comedy at York. It’s just a lot of fun. I remember days in rehearsal when we were all riffing off one another and cracking ourselves up, and then we’d take everything to that week’s audience and, when they were with us, it was an incredible high and when they weren’t, we consoled ourselves that at least we found each other hilarious. I write alone now, but I write very much as we did back then, through improv, playing all the roles.
In terms of challenges, comedy takes having a good ear for rhythm and the discipline to keep working it until it’s exactly right. Some days that comes more easily to me than others.
In addition to professional theatres, your works are widely produced at non-professional/amateur theatres. What do you think connects audiences to your work?
I’m so grateful for the way non-professional theatres have embraced my plays. I have a lot of lovefor them because there were many years I didn’t have the ability to pursue theatre as a career and those theatres provided an outlet. On top of that, I’ve met some very cool people that way. There’s a lot of talent out there to be discovered in community theatres.
Audiences seem to connect to the playfulness of my work and also to the themes I’ve chosen to explore, like grief and mental health, for example.
Can you share your reflections about the stage of your career that you’re currently in, and do you have any goals going forward?
I feel incredibly fortunate to be at this stage of my career. It’s been about ten years since I resumed writing and in that time I’ve written ten plays and had productions in almost every province and in the United States and Europe. I’m published (with Scirocco Drama), which has been a dream of mine since childhood. I’ve had support from a number of wonderful theatres, collaborated with incredible artists, and been able to spend my days writing.
My short-term goal is to finish the play I’m currently writing and see it on stage, and one of my longer-term goals is to write a novel.
When this interview is released, PGC will have just wrapped up its 2024 Tom Hendry Awards. As a multi-year winner yourself, what did winning mean to you? Is there any advice that you’d give to playwrights who might be thinking about submitting a script next year?
My advice is go for it! Always go for it, whether that’s submitting your work to a theatre or a contest or anything else. I didn’t think I would win when I first submitted (Gibson & Sons in 2016). When I found out I had, it was one of the most exciting moments I’ve had as a writer, and very validating. That year I had left my previous industry and made the leap into theatre as a career, so it came at a very impactful time and I took it as a sign I was on the right path.
What are you working on next?
I’m currently completing a commission that I’ve been working on for the past couple of years. I’m still writing the first draft so I don’t want to get into too much detail, but it’s based on true events and a subject that matters to me personally.
Do you have any favourite Canadian plays and/or which artists are currently inspiring you?
I’m a fan of so many artists and plays and I’m adding to them all the time. I could really overthink this question so I’m going to give you a non-exhaustive list off the top of my head: Jewel by Joan MacLeod, This is How We Got Here by Keith Barker, What a Young Wife Ought to Know by Hannah Moscovitch, Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story by Beau Dixon.
In terms of comedies, I think my favourite is Screwball Comedy by Norm Foster. I’ve seen it on stage twice. I also really love Bed and Breakfast by Mark Crawford.
Find Kristen’s plays for sale in the Canadian Play Outlet here!
Disclaimer: Playwrights Guild of Canada (“PGC”) is a national arts service mandated to engage and grow an active Canadian writing community. We promote Canadian plays around the world to advance the creative rights and interests of professional Canadian playwrights for the stage. The views of our members are their own. The opinions of PGC as an association remain neutral.
