Gill Salmon returns for her second season with NotaBle Acts.
Photo by Kelly Baker

After making both her playwriting debut and her festival debut last year, Fredericton playwright Gill Salmon shares her latest play Lakeview Hotel as part of our 2023 Acting Out series. 

Gill Salmon is a trained improv performer, a stand-up comedian, and an emerging playwright and screenwriter who recently made her acting debut in Strike Pictures’ upcoming feature film. She also collects prosthetic limbs and has a 12-foot skeleton statue in her backyard that doubles as a Christmas tree during the holiday season. For these reasons and a wealth of others, we are overjoyed to have Gill involved in her second straight season with NotaBle Acts.  

Last year, Gill made her festival debut with a pair of short sketches as part of our Taking It To The Streets series.  And this year, her latest play Lakeview Hotel will be featured as part of our Acting Out series of one-act plays. 

Lakeview Hotel is a ghost story told from a ghost’s perspective, sort of.

“The idea for this play came to me as I was reading a book about writing last August and the book was discussing different perspectives in an environment,” she said. “I’d also been reading a lot of Stephen King and was thinking about where The Shining maybe came from. 

“Hotels are also kind of a weird single serving experience for humans. You’re there for a night or two, you move on. But there are people who work there behind the scenes that you never really see, but their absence would be notable. What if the hotel is known for being haunted, like the Algonquin in St. Andrews? What if people go there for that experience and the hotel management lean into that and somehow convince a few bored ghosts, who are just there passing the time, to do something meaningful while they’re waiting for their unfinished business to be addressed? I liked the idea, drew up an outline, and Lakeview Hotel was born.”

Moving from last year’s site-specific outdoor sketches to our festival stage at Memorial Hall is a big jump for any emerging playwright. Gill is one of just a few in our festival’s history to follow-up both their playwriting debut and their festival debut with a one-act production across back-to-back festivals. 

She credits the variety of local opportunities for inspiring her writing and giving her many of the tools to stay focused on her craft while growing artistically. 

“Fredericton is so rich in resources,” she said. 

Since last year’s festival, Gill has attended workshops at Theatre New Brunswick with Jena McLean and others; took part in NotaBle Acts’ writing workshops with Anthony Bryan; and attended Ryan Griffith’s winter workshop series at the Charlotte Street Arts Centre. She also helped establish the local improv group Dead Serious (whose core members are all featured playwrights in this year’s festival!), and completed the Foundations in Visual Arts program at NBCCD. 

Across all her creative experiences this past year, Gill says the most important thing she learned was to ask questions and step outside her comfort zone.

“The biggest theme for me throughout this past year was getting to the point that I felt comfortable asking these magnificent and brilliant artists for feedback on my work,” she said. “Work with a lot of people, get a lot of different experiences, ask for feedback, do the revisions, build something cool.”

Lakeview Hotel and Night Train by Merrit Johnson will be performed at UNB’s Memorial Hall, August 3-5 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets available at the door for 15$ regular, 10$ senior/student/underwaged.

Photo by Kelly Baker.

Playwright in Residence Julia Lederer shares six important tips foremerging writers.

A quick glance at Julia Lederer’s website shows the diverse path her writing has taken. From
plays to television and film, copywriting and the occasional magazine article, Julia is addicted to
words, phrases, and the various structures they can follow. Or as she describes it, “I am a bit
obsessed with the power of language.


“For me, writing can be tedious and hard to figure out sometimes, but I know I always feel
better when I do it,” she said, while pointing out how important a community can be to staying
inspired and learning new things about one’s work.


“Community is really helpful in terms of keeping going. I’ve found that in playwrights units, labs
and programs, and with friends I met doing indie theatre right out of school,” she said.
“More recently, I’ve found it through a class I took on Zoom that has continued weekly (with
some breaks) for almost a year now. Seeing others’ work change and grow and having people
to go to when you’re stuck or just feeling overwhelmed by being a writer has been essential to
me. It’s also just more fun than writing in a vacuum.”


Over the past several weeks Julia has worked with this year’s playwrights, helping to tweak and
add an additional layer of polish to their work. To extend her reach as Playwright in Residence
beyond this year’s participating writers, we asked Julia to share with us a few words of advice
for emerging and would-be writers.

1: Just Write.

I think the best advice is to write. Let yourself write knowing that most of the work will be
rewriting, and try to enjoy finding where you’re going, even if the path is winding. Try not to
worry if you’re not happy with what comes out initially, just ride it out. Words are easy to
change. 

2: Turn Off Your Inner-Critic.

I know I’ve struggled with my own inner-critic voice getting in the way of being creative, and I
really try to just push that part aside and get into the story, characters, and language. 

3: Drafts Are Essential.

Know that you’re going to write more drafts than you think, and that it will be hard (at times)
and (often) long, but once you get there you have that piece of work forever. 

4: Expand Your Community.

If you’re a playwright and you aren’t finding the opportunities you were hoping for where you
live, look elsewhere (or, do it anyway — the wonderful thing about theatre is that plays happen
almost everywhere). Do your research and reach out to places and artists who are doing work
that excites you and who you’d be interested in working with. Support your community, and
also seek out writing/work beyond that too. 
Especially in Canada, if you see or read something you connect to, reach out to the artist and
tell them. Email addresses aren’t hard to find, and most people will meet with you for a coffee
or a Zoom. Have questions when you do. 

5: Diversify.

Be open to different mediums. Find what you love, but know that there are lots of ways and
formats to write in, and you might surprise yourself. Stepping outside what you’re used to
writing will inform it when you step back in. 

6: Seek Feedback.

Seek feedback when you have a sense of what you’re hoping to achieve with a script. Outside
voices and collaborators are vital in writing for performance. Still, always hold close that this is
your work. You know it best. And still, be open to seeing it transform. 
NotaBle Acts Theatre Festival runs until August 6. Find full details including times and ticket info
at in the menu bar.

Photo by Barcsay Photography