From the Artistic Director’s Chair Series – #6
“Theatre is Meant to be Heard”
by Emily Oriold

Why I Write (And Why We Read Aloud).

As we prepare for our upcoming 3rd Annual Fostered Playwrights Festival, which includes my own play, Every Little Thing, I’ve been thinking a lot abut why I write at all.

The honest answer? Because I don’t really have a choice.

At some point, somewhere along the way, I was bitten by the writing bug. I have been secretly writing in the privacy of my own home for the past 20 years — filling notebooks, opening new documents, starting scenes I wasn’t sure I knew how to finish. Always writing.

But never quite believing I had the skills or the talent to take anything beyond a first or second draft.

And no matter how hard I’ve tried to cover that bug bite with an ointment — practicality, busyness managing the Festival, self-doubt, comparison — it persists. It itches. It flares up at inconvenient times. It refuses to heal over.

Because once you’ve been bitten, the impulse doesn’t disappear. Stories begin forming whether you give them permission or not. Characters start talking long before you feel qualified to write them down. And the longer you ignore them, the louder they become.

For years, I told myself it was enough to write privately. To keep it safe. To tuck those early drafts away where no one could see them… including the version of me who wasn’t sure she belonged in the writing world.

But the thing about a persistent bite is that eventually you have to stop pretending it isn’t there. You have to admit that it’s part of you.

So here we are.

Twenty years later. Still bitten. Still itching. And willing to show the mark.

Last year, at our 2nd Annual Fostered Playwrights Festival, I put my writing out into the world for the very first time. I braced myself for polite applause and quiet notes. Instead, the response was generous, thoughtful — and sincerely surprising. People leaned in. They laughed in places I hoped they would. They connected with these characters who had, until then, only existed in my imagination.

That experience gave me the courage to take the next step. This year, Every Little Thing moves into its second stage of development with a staged reading at the festival.

For those who may not know, a staged reading is not a full production. There are no elaborate sets, no costumes, no technical spectacle. But it is more than a straight reading where actors stand or sit with scripts in hand. There is some blocking, music between transitions, and minimal props to help the creative team see what’s working, where the rhythm sings, where the stakes rise, where the comedy lands, and, just as importantly, where it doesn’t.

For the writer, you hear the gaps, you feel the lulls, you discover the moments that need sharpening before the play moves toward the final phase  — a full production.

Because once you’ve felt that, once you’ve experienced something imagined becoming real in a room full of people, there’s no going back. Hearing actors breathe life into words that once lived only on your laptop is its own kind of theatre magic. It changes you.

You don’t choose writing. Writing chooses you.

And if you’re lucky (or stubborn) enough to say yes, you spend the rest of your life answering that call.

What’s remarkable (and mildly terrifying) is how different the first draft of Every Little Thing is from the draft being presented at this year’s playwrights festival. Truly different. Structurally. Tonally. Even philosophically. Looking back, I’m quite relieved that Jamie Williams is the only person who has ever read that original version. It should probably remain in a vault somewhere, sealed with caution tape.

And that’s precisely why the dramaturgical process matters so much.

A first draft is instinct. It’s an impulse. It’s throwing clay at the wheel and hoping something vaguely bowl-shaped appears. But theatre isn’t just about inspiration, it’s about excavation. It’s about asking harder questions. It’s about cutting lines you love because the scene needs oxygen. It’s about sharpening stakes. Raising tension. Letting the comedy land not because it’s clever, but because it’s truthful.

Norm Foster is the best in the country because he has an uncanny ability to write a first draft like none other. His instincts are razor sharp. Most of us are not that blessed. Most of us rewrite. And rewrite again. And then cut the thing we thought was the reason we wrote the play in the first place. That being said, even Norm would tell you that his plays benefit from the workshop process and public readings before the final draft is complete.

That’s the work.

When I asked Norm what keeps him writing, he said, “Because it’s a challenge that is very satisfying to me. When I am working on a play, I can’t wait to get at it each morning. (I write early. At about 4 a.m.) And when I write something that I think works, it is very rewarding. When I come up with an idea — an exchange between characters that I add to a play — that is the fun for me. That’s when I look back, and say ‘That’s why I enjoy this so much.’”

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned through this process is how profoundly different dialogue is from narration. In prose, you can explain what someone feels. On stage, you can’t. Characters reveal themselves only through what they say — and what they avoid saying. Dialogue has to clip along. Especially in comedy. It needs rhythm. Compression. Forward motion. Every line must either escalate the stakes or sharpen the turn.

Comedy, at its best, is a snapshot of ordinary people living inside an extraordinary situation. That’s the formula, as it were. The circumstances stretch them, pressurize them, expose them, and in that exposure, we recognize ourselves. We laugh because it’s heightened. We lean in because it’s true.

And that brings me to why play readings are so essential before a new play hits the stage as a full production.

Theatre is meant to be heard. A reading is where you discover if the dialogue breathes. If it moves. If it lands. You feel instantly where the audience shifts in their seat, where they laugh, where they hold their breath. It’s humbling. It’s exhilarating. It’s necessary.

Developing Canadian work matters deeply to me. Our voices. Our rhythms. Our humour. Our particular way of looking at the world. At The Foster Festival, we celebrate a playwright whose work has defined Canadian comedy for decades — and we also look to the future. We nurture new stories. We take risks. We create space for emerging and established writers to refine their craft in front of a live audience.

Continuing that legacy isn’t just about producing plays. It’s about cultivating community.

Comedy, especially, lifts us in even the darkest of times. It gives us permission to exhale. To sit shoulder to shoulder and experience something collectively. In a world that so often isolates, gathering in a theatre is a radical act of connection.

That’s why I write.

And that’s why I can’t wait to share with you the reworked draft of Every Little Thing and our line-up of other new Canadian comedies at our upcoming playwrights festival — imperfect drafts, sharpened dialogue, raised stakes and all.

I hope you’ll join us.

I’ll see you at the theatre!

Emily Oriold,
Artistic Director & Founder