Plank Magazine at Summerworks

Plank Magazine is about to launch itself into a brave new world: some call it Toronto.

Over the next two weeks we will be working with a crack team of Toronto-based writers and theatre artists to cover this year’s SummerWorks Festival. All Festival stories will be marked with P@SW so they will be easily identifiable. We will also be carrying on with our usual Vancouver coverage and preparing for the Vancouver Fringe Festival, which is less than a month away!

So why is a Vancouver-based magazine covering a Toronto festival?

It was never our intention to remain focussed solely on Vancouver. We have discussed where our natural constituency is located – should we also cover say, Victoria, Seattle or Calgary? Then Artistic Producer Michael Rubenfeld invited us to cover SummerWorks and we jumped at the opportunity.

There is nothing like SummerWorks in Vancouver and it is something we should be aware of, whether as theatre artists who might want to participate in future festivals or as audiences who might want to see something similar on the west coast. And if you think Vancouver audiences aren’t hungry for this kind of theatre adventure, just look at the numbers HIVE 2 generated during Magnetic North.

Making connections is at the core of what we do at Plank and we see this expansion as a way to build awareness about the performing arts community across the country. It is our hope that SummerWorks will launch us in Toronto in the same way Magnetic North did in Vancouver. There is phenomenal talent in both cities, let’s take this chance to celebrate.

I would also personally like to add a quick thank you to Michael Rubenfeld whose support in making this adventure happen has been invaluable. The writers we’ve collected are smart and sassy. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy their take on things here in the Big Smoke.