Two scripts. Three interpretations. Six pieces.
Creative Differences takes two original short scripts and gives each of them to three separate teams. One team stages it as a comedy, one as a tragedy, one as a musical. Over two nights you watch all six, and see how many worlds the same words can be made to hold.
That's why the scripts arrive stripped down: no character descriptions, no stage directions, no time period, no world to build. Every team gets its own director and cast and works on its own. No one has any idea what the other interpretations are until opening night.
MTC builds the frame around all of it — the application, the selection panel, matching artists to teams, and everything the venue needs on the night. What happens inside the rehearsal room belongs to the team.
Applications are open
Apply now →Who it's for
You don't need to be a professional to apply, and you don't need a résumé. We want beginners and emerging artists, students and recent graduates, people coming back to theatre after years away, artists who trained formally and artists who taught themselves, and artists from every background this city has.
What we're actually looking for is simpler: an interest in theatre, a willingness to collaborate, the reliability to show up, and a calendar that clears for the schedule below. You'll be working in a small team and trading notes with them the whole way, so come ready to give them and take them.
There's no single kind of artist we're after. The range is the point.
A note on compensation
Creative Differences is a volunteer project. If we secure funding, the MTC board decides how it's allocated by resolution.
For playwrights
We're taking two scripts. Each one gets staged three times by three teams working separately — once as a comedy, once as a tragedy, once as a musical. Write something that survives all three: enough for a team to grab hold of, open enough to be played for laughs, for grief, and set to music. Your script must be:
- —7–9 pages, under 10 minutes in performance, and dialogue-forward. No paragraph-long monologues, no improvisation.
- —Written for 3–4 actors.
- —Free of character descriptions, stage directions, a fixed time period, and world-building.
- —Producible with five props at most, taken from the approved list we send to selected playwrights.
- —Free of any one tone, genre or performance style. The director and performers decide how it plays.
Submissions are anonymized before the panel reads them, so keep your name and anything identifying out of the file.
Nothing stays at the theatre between calls. Every team hauls its own props and set in and out at each session, so write light.
Playwrights may not direct or perform in their own piece.
For performers
Tell us what you've performed, what you've trained in, and anything else you bring to a room. Two of the six pieces are musicals, so singing and musical theatre experience is genuinely useful here, though it isn't required.
Casting is by self-tape. There are no in-person auditions, so send one with your application: a link or an mp4, about two minutes. There are monologues on our site if you need one. Scripts go out once the teams are set, and you're expected off-book at the first rehearsal.
Performers may not also write or direct their piece.
For creative apprentices & stage managers
What have you worked on, what draws you to this one, and when are you free? That's the whole application. Creative apprentices and stage managers are assigned to a team once the scripts are chosen, and you'll need the entire rehearsal and performance schedule clear, tech and dress included.
For directors
Directors don't come through the open call. MTC invites them and hands each one a script once the panel has chosen. If you want to direct with us, write to heidi@momenttheatre.ca.
Rehearsal structure
Every team gets two four-hour rehearsal blocks in the weeks before the run, and the schedule reaches you a few weeks ahead of the first one.
If your team wants more time than that, it's yours to arrange: find the space, book it, get everyone there. MTC doesn't provide rehearsal space beyond the two blocks.
Tech & dress
Tech and dress is Friday, November 20, 6:00 to 11:00 PM, and it's mandatory: cast, crew, designers, technicians, directors, everyone the production needs. There are no exceptions. Please don't apply if you can't be in the room that night.
Code of conduct
Everyone accepted signs MTC's code of conduct and photo/video release before we start. The code covers respectful collaboration, safe rehearsal practice, professional conduct, and how we handle communication and accountability. Keeping the room safe is on all of us.
Read all three before you apply — the application asks you to agree to the first two, and we would rather you had read what you are agreeing to.
Key dates
- September 1 Applications open online
- October 1 Applications close for playwrights, performers, stage managers and creative apprentices
- October 8 Playwrights notified of selection
- October 10 Stage managers and creative apprentices notified and assigned to a play
- October 17 Performers notified and cast; scripts distributed
- November 1 Rehearsals begin
- Friday, November 20 Tech & dress rehearsal, 6:00 PM – 11:00 PM (mandatory, no exceptions)
- Saturday, November 21 Show 1: curtain 8:00 PM
- Sunday, November 22 Show 2: curtain 8:00 PM
Where
Montréal. We'll announce the venue here as soon as the contract is signed.
Questions
Anything about the project or the application, write to heidi@momenttheatre.ca.
