It’s back, and it’s TEN YEARS OLD!  That’s right, our annual Festival of Youth Theatre is turning ten, and we look forward to celebrating with a line-up of thrilling youth-led performances coming in May 2025.  If you are a young person interested in a theatre role such as playwright, director, or stage manager, this festival is for you – and submissions are NOW OPEN!

What is Cannonball?

The Cannonball! Festival is CYPT’s annual festival of youth-led theatre.  That means every role – playwrights, directors, stage managers, designers, actors – is taken on by youth, with guidance from our team of mentors. If your submission is selected, here’s what the process will look like. From September to February, playwrights will develop their scripts, and we will host a variety of workshops designed to give participants an crash course on all the elements of creating a show.  We then host auditions in February to cast the shows, and begin rehearsals, culminating in performances of the one-act shows in May! Want to submit to be involved? Here’s how:

The Pitch

If you’re submitting as a playwright, we’ll require a pitch – something to tell us about your show idea, and why we should be excited to have it in the festival.  Don’t worry too much about needing to ‘sell’ us your show – tell us why YOU’RE excited by it, and why you want to bring it to life as part of the festival.

Make sure to include the following information:

• Who are you, and what is your script?
• Who’s on your team? Do you have a director/stage manager/designers attached to this project?
• What are your initial design ideas? Feel free to include any inspirations you have – music, Pinterest boards, anything you have that you feel help to communicate your ideas.
• Stage of development.  Do you have a completed draft of your script? Or just a few scenes written?
• Anything else you want to share to communicate your concept or excite us!

If you aren’t sure how to craft a pitch, fear not! We will be hosting a Pitch Workshop on Sunday, August 11 at 3:00pm in Birds and Stone theatre.  Our Cannonball production team will be covering what makes a compelling pitch for the Cannonball! Festival.  We want to help you make your pitch the best it can be! If you can’t make it, you can always reach us at the Cannonball email listed below.

The Script

The second part of applying as a playwright is to send us your script! You don’t have to have a full draft of your script, but we do ask that you have at least one scene written.  If you don’t have a full draft, we’d love to see any storyboarding or bullet points you have about what you haven’t written yet, so that we can get a good sense of what your show is about – the more information we have, the better! You also don’t need to know everything about your script – a large part of the Cannonball process is the development of your script.  Tell us what you’re curious about and what you want to explore as your show develops!  Please note that we only accept one-act shows for this festival.

The Letter of Interest

If you’re not submitting as playwright, we’d like a letter of interest from you to get to know you and why you want to be involved.  This by no means should be an essay – in terms of length, a page or so is great!

Here’s what we’ll want to know:

• Who are you, and what role would you like to apply for? (i.e. Director, Stage Manager, Designer)
• Is there a script submission that you’re attached to?
• Why do you want to take part in Cannonball, and specifically, in this role?
• What is your previous theatre experience?
• Any other information you’d like us to know!

As with the pitch, if you have any questions, feel free to email us at the email listed below.  If you’re hoping to be an actor in Cannonball, you don’t need to submit anything at all! Auditions will be taking place in February.

The Submission

Once you’re ready to submit, we ask that you please covert all your documents to PDF form, and email them to cannonball@cypt.ca. The deadline for submission is Sunday, September 1st at 11:59pm.  We can’t wait to see what you submit!