NotaBle Acts Free Playwriting Workshop with Jill Connell, July 19

NotaBle Acts is excited to offer all members of the community a free workshop with our 2026 Playwright/Dramaturg in Residence, Jill Connell! 

Playwriting & Embodied Experience

Sunday, July 19, 2026                                                                                              

12:00pm – 3:00pm

UNB Carleton Hall room 304

No charge

A workshop for creative writers and theatre-makers interested in exploring the form and structure of plays. We will use free-writing exercises to explore our experience of the world and the feeling of things (versus an objective or outside perspective about the “logic” of things). We will then look for an associated shape that might contain this experience in live performance and explore this via dramatic writing. We’ll share these aloud with each other, prioritizing availability over interpretation and experimentation over perfection.

All levels of experience are welcome. Please bring a notebook and pen. Limited spots available: email jill@itcouldstillhappen.com to register by July 17.

Jill Connell (she/they) is a playwright and theatre artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Her plays include The Supine Cobbler (published with Coach House Books), Arctic Ocean, HROSES: An Affront to Reason, The Tall Building and The Shark Tumour Collection. She runs the independent theatre company It Could Still Happen: a collective of interdisciplinary artists who create performances based on text, space and embodied practice. In March 2026, ICSH premièred their most recent work, The Herald, in partnership with Canada’s longest-running queer theatre, Buddies in Bad Times.

Jill is a graduate of the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada and holds a Masters in English from the University of New Brunswick. Over the past few years, she has been fortunate to teach performance and creative writing at Toronto Metropolitan University, the University of Toronto, Sheridan College, and Humber College. Jill has had four productions with NotaBle Acts, including her thesis play The Shark Tumour Collection, directed by Len Falkenstein (2006). She is thrilled to return to Fredericton after so long and grateful for the warm welcome.

This workshop is being held in conjunction with the 25th edition of the NotaBle Acts Summer Theatre Festival, which will take place from July 22-August 1 at venues across Fredericton. Browse www.nbacts.com for full lineup, schedule, and ticket information.

The NotaBle Acts Theatre Company is seeking submissions for its twenty-fifth annual provincewide playwriting competition. Contest winners will have their work featured as part of the 2026 NotaBle Acts Summer Theatre Festival, to be held in Fredericton, July 23-August 1.

New Brunswick playwrights have the opportunity to submit work in three main categories, one for 7-10 minute short plays, one for 30-60 minute one-act plays, and another for 10-20 minute site-specific plays. Two additional categories of the contest are specifically for young playwrights in New Brunswick Middle and High schools.

Winning playwrights will also receive a cash prize and script mentoring from a professional playwright.

The contest rules and guidelines, as well as instructions on how to submit scripts, are available at http://www.nbacts.com. Questions about the contest can be directed to lfalken@unb.ca or (506) 458-7406. The contest deadline is May 1st, 2026.