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T BERTO (1961 - ) |
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Nationality: Canadian Email: Click here to contact Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: n/a |
T. Berto's first play, BASH, won the Toronto Fringe Best New Play Prize in 2000. The following year his play SKATE IT OFF, BOBBY opened at The George Luscombe Theatre in Guelph. In 2002 his show Gypsies played at the Toronto Fringe Festival; a month later his one-man show, The Fifth Option, was chosen for the Summerworks Festival. In the winter of 2002 his play To The Earth was workshopped at York University. In 2003 DUE PROCESS was also chosen by the Summerworks Festival where its lead, Kelly Bolt, was named best performer by NOW Magazine. In the spring of 2004, his play The Painted Bird, was chosen for University of Lethbridge's Canadian Playwrights in Development series. Later that year, his play Guantanamara, played at the Summerworks Festival at Factory Theatre. His short play Captured played as part of Theatre Channel creative collection in September 2004 at the Culture Vacuum in Toronto. In 2005 his play SERVICED, played the Fringe festival. In 2006 The Singularity Of Being, a play written under a seed grant from Canstage, was work-shopped by Rachel Ditor at the University of Lethbridge. His work CHRYSALIS was presented by Theatre 8-0-8 in Calgary and his play FOUR WAYS 'TIL RAIN was work-shopped at Theatre and Company in Kitchener in both 2006 and 2007, and then played at 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival. In 2008 a version of DOWNSTREAM (ROW) was read at Free Jane, Sky Gilbert's reading series as a part of pride celebration at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre. In Fall 2008 Cole J. Alvis began work on a mixed media version of CHRYSALIS. In 2009 A SINGULARITY OF BEING won the macIDEAS/Fringe best new play prize and played at Toronto's Tarragon theatre - directed by Ed Roy. The play then went on to win Best of the Fringe and subsequently played a further set of dates at Canstage in Toronto. In August that year DOWNSTREAM played at the Roundhouse Theatre in Vancouver as part of the Clean Sheets Festival. That fall SONNY was produced at Edmonton's Loud 'n' Queer" Festival, as were short plays POWER and DIGNITY in 2010 and 2011. In 2010 he was commissioned by KICKtheatre to write an adaptation of Ibsen's GHOSTS set in Duplessis' Quebec. T. Berto has also been a member of Factory Theatre's writer's lab (under Brian Quirt), Cahoots' Theatre Project's writer's group (under Guillermo Verdecchia), Theatre-Channel Collective, (under Paul Rivers) Theatre and Company's Writer's Block (under Lisa O'Connell), and The Paper Door Playwrights Reading Series at Factory Theatre (under Bill Lane) in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007 respectively. He has a B.A. and B.Sc. from University of Guelph and a M.F.A. from York University. His work has been published in Cormorant, The Fiddlehead, Canadian Literature, New Quarterly, The Fieldstone Review, Carousel, Australasian Drama Studies and Prairie Fire. His monologues are published in She Speaks, He Speaks, Gay and Lesbian Monologues, printed by Playwrights Canada Press. He received an Ontario Arts Council Grant in 2005 for his work FOUR WAYS 'TIL RAIN. FOUR WAYS 'TIL RAIN, SERVICED and SKATE IT OFF, BOBBY are all available from the Playwright Guild of Canada (orders@playwrightsguild.ca). T. Berto is currently finishing a PhD. in Theatre Studies, where he received the Lambda prize in 2005 for his work in Queer studies.
Plays by T Berto
Addenda to Skate It Off, Bobby | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | One scene published in "He Speaks", Playwright's Canada Press, Ed. David Ferry. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #94367 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Bash | ||
| 1st Produced: | Toronto Fringe Playwriting Contest | 2000 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #3147 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | political drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | came out of workshop environments under the tutelage of Judith Thompson | |||||
Synopsis: | relies on sexual ambiguity as the trope that pushes its narrative forward. Anil, a South Asian man attacked in a park famous for its gay cruising, and detective Veil a white police officer investigating the incident, It is a tightly woven, suspenseful drama that falls somewhere between Alfred Hitchcock and David Mamet territory. Not only is the sexuality of the two characters deliberately left as an open question, but the balance of power between the two is just as unpredictable.There's always someone who tries to take the upper hand. Beat for beat for beat throughout the play one of them is in a position of power and the other isn't. The suspense is carefully built, audiences are confronted with the ideas that inform the play -- from urgent social issues like racism, homophobia and police brutality to a more philosophical investigation into the very nature of the democratic rights of citizens. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Downstream | ||
| 1st Produced: | Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, Toronto. Free Jane. (reading) | 2008 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #94366 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The play explores the life of a former "kept boy", after he has reached an age where not only is his value decreased but his ability to engage with others outside a disciplined relationship is difficult. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Due Process | ||
| 1st Produced: | Summerworks Festival, Toronto | 2003 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck and Interzone Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #3148 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Fifth Option, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Summerworks Festival, Toronto | 2002 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #3149 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | political drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | At the top of his game, the therapist comes to a crossroads, perplexed. As a physician whose clients are survivors of political torture, he has worked the worst. Yet now, a case so daunting, he must ask his peers to use the most radical therapy. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Four Ways 'Til Rain | ||
| 1st Produced: | Factory Theatre, Toronto, Fringe 2008. | 2008 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #94364 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Play was given two separate workshop performances at Theatre and Company in Kitchener, Ontario, 2006 and 2007. One scene is published in Gay Monologues and Scenes, Playwrights Canada Press, edited by Sky Gilbert. Another scene is published in Fieldstone Review, Issue , May 2008. | |||||
Synopsis: | A series of intense interlocking monologues. The play allows an audience to discover what relations six men on stage have had as it explores a wide range of gay male attitudes toward sex from egocentric pleasure to control to healing to transformation. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Guantanamera | ||
| 1st Produced: | Summerworks Festival, Toronto | 2004 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #39797 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | political drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Two political prisoners contemplate the limits of their own existance through a set of carefully determined rules and games | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Gypsies | ||
| 1st Produced: | Toronto Fringe Playwriting Contest | 2002 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #3150 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Gypsies captures the plight of those in the social classes who are too often disregarded by the majority, especially within a college town. Linda, a woman who's been pushed around and moved around one too many times arrives aagain in a new town and has to make the choice of babysitting her young daughter in their new flop, or babysitting her man as takes to the student bar in the neighborhood | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Painted Bird, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | workshopped at York's New Playwright's Festival | 2003 | ||||
Company: | University of Lethbridge | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #3151 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | This play also was performed in a workshop production at University of Lethbridge in 2004 | |||||
Synopsis: | Three biologists are stationed in Canada's high Arctic, in a field camp for a government funded ornithological study. The play discusses and questions many issues, foremost being how humans behave as biological animals, akin to the birds the characters themselves are studying. The primary behaviour among these is creatures' tendencies not only identify with, but to actively form bonds with those they consider like them. In the play the character of Carl, by failing to tell of his sexual preference, finds himself being mistaken by Delia, whom, because of their overt similarities, is drawn to him amourously/sexually. Similarly, Delia and Carl are distanced from Kenneth by age and personal and social politics. When the relationship between Carl and Delia becomes thwarted, Carl decides to remain misrepresented, and to allow the biological imperatives of survival to guide his behaviour rather than the social imperatives of honesty. This decision has unexpected behavioural results from Delia, who spurned, forms an alliance with Kenneth socially and, at least in appearance, sexually. Because the requirements of living so isolated, the confusion in each character's motives and behaviours, and the 'otherness' and peril of their situation, Carl becomes confused over his place in the reality of the moment and in his behavioural drives. When the peril of their setting is finally expressed, the world they inhabit becomes too ungraspable and their reactions to it are inadequate and ultimately regrettable. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Serviced | ||
| 1st Produced: | Helen Phaelen Gardiner theatre, Toronto Fringe | 2005 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck Theatre | |||||
| 1st Published: | Two scenes are published in "She speaks" Playwrights Canada Press, Ed. Judith Thompson. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #94365 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Black Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Serviced explores the underclass of persons working in the service industry. Ideas of sales, commodification and spin all effect their self-images and ideas about their personal sexuality. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Singularity of Being, A | ||
| 1st Produced: | Toronto Fringe 2009 | 01 Jul 2009 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #91474 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Winner of the MacIDEAS/Toronto Best New Play Prize, and also 2009 Best of Fringe. Encore production coming in fall 2012 in Toronto. www.singularityofbeing.com | |||||
Synopsis: | A Singularity of Being imagines an astro-physicist working towards solving the mysteries of a grand, unified theory. In the process, he becomes stricken with debilitating disease. The play probes the magnitude and consequences of trying to understand the universe. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Skate It Off, Bobby | ||
| 1st Produced: | George Luscombe Theatre | 2001 | ||||
Company: | Pencil-Neck Productions | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #3152 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | political drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | came out of workshop environments under the tutelage of Judith Thompson. The play deals with two topics, one rather delicate. My country has recently been plagued by a number of allegations and convictions concerning pedophile hockey coaches preying upon | |||||
Synopsis: | Gianni, a jack-of-all trades, and Carl, a biologist meet and begin feeling each other out as potential partners. As their relationship progresses they discover that they are both childhood victims of sexual abuse committed by the same hockey coach - while in different towns at different times. While one of them is rather well- adjusted, the other is quite affected. This leads to friction and an eventual failure, yet discovery, in their relationship | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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To The Earth | ||
| 1st Produced: | workshop, York University | 2002 | ||||
Company: | Theatre @York | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #3153 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | political drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | An ensemble piece. Needs at very least five women and five men | |||||
Notes: | A bit about how the play came into being. Early in the nineties I worked teaching ESL with new Canadians, mostly refugees. After most of my students reach a level of proficiency they began to share their experiences of coming through various conflicts, wa | |||||
Synopsis: | A group of people are torn by ethnic conflict and watch as their norms are degraded to savagery | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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