Nightswimming is a rather unusual theatre company. Instead of producing work themselves, they focus on the development of new work and then seek out partnerships with existing companies who have the resources to produce and market them.

A substantial grant has enabled the company to initiate three new projects: The Whirlpool, an adaptation of Jane Urquhart's best-selling novel by Nightswimming Artistic Director, Brian Quirt; An Acre of Time, by award-winning and prolific playwright Jason Sherman, and Jocasta, by Ned Dickens.

The Whirlpool, a poetic story about changing destinies, is receiving a workshop at Canadian Stage Company in conjunction with the World Stage Festival, while An Acre of Time will be workshopped in August at Ottawa's Great Canadian Theatre Company. Also a book adaptation, Acre tells the history of a tract of land in Ottawa called the Lebreton Flats. And Jocasta springs from an outdoor production of Dickens' Oedipus, where he and Quirt became fascinated with the with the character of Jocasta, Oedipus' mother.

The grant also allows Quirt to continue working on The Death Of General Wolfe, a play based on the famous painting of Wolfe dying at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The first version was successful at last summer's Fringe Festival and in Ottawa, and is now slated to open as a mainstage production at Theatre Passe Muraille in January.

For more information on Nightswimming activites, call 416-214-1992. -- By Mira Friedlander
Canada Correspondent