Mandate | Dialogues | Québec Plays in Translation |
 Anthology of Women Plays published by PCP |
 Individual Playwright's Residencies
 

CEAD is a centre for the development and promotion of new Québec
and French-Canadian plays

Mandate
In the mid-sixties, Québec playwrights, feeling the need to band together, formed an association, known as the Centre d'essai des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD). Though the term "essai" was later dropped, the mandate established by the founding members - to promote Québec plays and playwrights - remains pertinent and valid after 40 years of existence.

Operating as a service to playwrights, to the professional and amateur theatre communities, as well as to the academic milieu, CEAD is representative of all professional francophone playwriting in Quebec and throughout Canada. Membership, currently more than 230, is constantly on the rise. The artistic and philosophical direction of the organization, and the practical decisions which stem from it, are determined by the board of directors, made up exclusively of artists elected at the annual general meeting.

All activities and services organized by CEAD serve its mandate, be they dramaturgical support, public readings, the resource centre with its online database, national and international exchanges, promotion in English and in other languages, the Quebec Playwriting Residency, the Individual Playwriting Residencies, the Salons (evenings given in CEAD's Resource Centre around one Playwright's works) or through CEAD Diffusion, awards as the Prix Gratien-Gélinas, the Bourse Louise LaHaye and the Prix du Jury Françoise-Berd, all funds set up to support emerging playwrights.

CEAD understood early on that exporting was key to opening up new doors for Quebec and French Canadian playwrights and to offering them new sources of income. And it goes without saying that exporting and access to new markets usually means translation into other languages, English in particular. The decision in the early eighties to create the position of Coordinator of English-language Activities, and to promote playwrights and their plays in this language, allowed access to these new markets.

CEAD wishes to broaden this outreach, in an ever-changing cultural context where the artistic exchanges are such that texts are now becoming part, not only of a national dramaturgy, but of an international one.

One of our publications, Dialogues, (written both in English and French) is one of many joint ventures by Playwrights Workshop Montreal and CEAD, published in 2004.

Dialogues
Contemporary Writing Practices From Quebec and Canada / Language and Theatre Translation (PDF)

Québec Plays in Translation
 The Catalogue of CEAD's Playwrights Membres
 On line Search of Available Translations

Special Announcement
 The publication by Playwrights Canada Press (Toronto) of the second part of an anthology of Québec Women’s Plays in English Translation, Volume II (1987-2003).
Edited by Louise H. Forsyth

more information

Order directly from PCP


 Individual Playwright's Residencies

Founded by Québécois playwrights in 1965, the CEAD now counts more than 250 members and continues to pursue the main goals of its founders: to support the process of writing for the stage and to promote Quebec and French-Canadian dramaturgy.
Every year the CEAD organises collective writing and translation residencies. For the first time in 2008 a new individual residency was organised by the CEAD as an experimental project.
 Located at the heart of Montreal, this residency opened to playwrights from everywhere.  The residency's geographic location favours reflection and artistic creation and offers the selected playwrights the possibility to profit form Montreal’s rich theatrical life.

TRANSLATION RESIDENCY AT CEAD
Montreal, November 7, 2008 - From November 6 to 14, Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD) is holding a translation residency in Montreal. For this event, CEAD is hosting playwrights and translators from Quebec, Alberta and the United States.

(More information here, November 7, 2008)

 

To contact us: cead@cead.qc.ca


CEAD is located at

261, rue du Saint-Sacrement, Suite 200
Montréal (Québec
Canada H2Y 3V2
PHONE : 514 288-3384
FAX : 514 288-7043
cead@cead.qc.ca
Place d'Armes Métro Station, in Old Montréal.

Wi-Fi is available for your laptop.