GERRY POTTER

Workshop West Playwrights' Theatre was founded in 1978 by Gerry Potter, who remained the Artistic Director for 17 years.  The initial inspiration for the company was to work with Alberta playwrights on new plays, testing and workshopping the material and presenting the best of these works as full productions. While these works were being developed, the company also presented some of the best new plays from across Canada.

Among these were memorable productions of David Fennario's On the Job, featuring a young Paul Gross, the same author's Balconville, Michel Tremblay's Hosanna, John Gray's Billy Bishop Goes to War and the award-winning production of David French's Of the Fields, Lately.

Workshop West offered playwriting courses, commissioned new works, gave public readings of new plays and workshopped new scripts. New plays produced included  Alan Filewod's Benny theBeaver and the Third World War, Gordon Pengilly'sFlibbertygibbet, Potter's own Gabriel The Outlaw Hero and Sharon Stearns' Hooking for Paradise.

In 1985, with the implementation of the Playmaking Ensemble, the company put additional resources into new work and began to experiment with collective creation, collaborations with playwrights, novel adaptations, and the pursuit of a highly theatrical style.  Out of this work a number of new productions emerged that cemented the company's growing reputation as a centre for exciting new theatre.  Potter and Joanne Osborne's adaptation of Henry Kreisel's novel The Rich Man was the first in a series of critical and popular successes of the late 80's and early 90's which included Frank Moher'sSliding for Home and Prairie Report, Blake Brooker'sBarbarians, Arthur Milner's Learning to Live with Personal Growth and Brad Fraser's Unidentified Human Remains and The Ugly Man.

Also during the late 80's and early 90's, WWT partnered with Teatro la Quindicina to produce a series of new Lemoine hits, including When Girls Collide and The Glittering Hear. Potter also brought to Edmonton outstanding touring productions from across Canada such as Ronnie Burkett's Fool's Edge and Robert Lepage's Polygraphe.