Fredericton playwright offers first taste of new work

Greg Everett will read his latest work in progress this weekend as part of Spearhead Theatre’s season launch.

Matt Carter

Greg Everett will read his latest play this work in progress this weekend.

Fredericton playwright Greg Everett will open a new window into his fictional world of BVRNTLAND this weekend with a public reading of his latest work in development, Oxbow. Hosted as part of Spearhead Theatre’s 2020 season launch which will take place Saturday February 29 at the Odell Park Lodge, Oxbow is Everett’s third play based around the imaginary world he’s created.

“The script is an effort to answer the questions that come up again and again about the world of BVRNTLAND,” said Everett. “Where does it exist? How does it operate? How do the disparate parts fit together? It’s a series of separate monologues that are part chronicle, part myth, part storytelling, part echo and reverberation. Rather than build something intricate that provides glances into the unknown, Oxbow is an attempt to lay things bare and take a look at the guts of the world.”

After successful productions of his two previous BVRNTLAND plays Carrion Birds (2018) and Gullywhump (2019), both presented as part of the NotaBle Acts Summer Theatre Festival, Everett began developing this latest installment in early 2020 while plotting a few possible stages for the work.

“Just like the other scripts in the series, Oxbow is drawing on ideas and archetypes that have been creeping around in my head for a while, many of which have directly informed my earlier work,” he said. “But this has been a relatively short development phase. I pitched the idea as part of my Flourish Festival application, and I’ve been working on the script since January.”

A full production of Oxbow will be included as part of the 2020 Flourish Festival. But this week, Everett will give theatre fans a taste of what to expect from the upcoming production when he reads the work before an audience for the first time.

“As a playwright, I’m definitely at a stage where a script is never finished,” he said. “Getting your work to the stage for the first time is just an opportunity for real, full feedback to tighten it down and make it better for the next time.”