On May 13 at the Belfry Theatre Donor Appreciation Event, Michael Shamata and Dr. Pervez (Perry) Bamji presented Nicholas Guerreiro with the 2024 Annamaria Bamji Award for Emerging Playwrights.

The Annamaria Bamji Award for Emerging Playwrights was created in 2021 by Dr. Perry Bamji in memory of his late wife Annamaria Bamji (nee Carnelos). Annamaria was a remarkable patron of the arts and a dear friend of the Belfry.

Nicholas Guerreiro is a playwright and theatre creator based on the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən-Speaking Peoples. Nicholas is a past-participant in Belfry 101—the Belfry’s program for secondary school students—and a graduate of the Theatre and Creative Writing departments at the University of Victoria. Last year, his most recent play, Bedsprings, was staged at the Between Words One-Act Play festival, as well as part of the double-bill Love Death, and Pineapples alongside another of his plays, The Funeral Plot. His play Green Knight on the Frog River was a runner up for the 2021 RBC Emerging Playwrights Award. His scripts have also been staged at SKAMpede, the Or Festival, Touchstone Theatre’s New Crew, the Great Canadian Play Thing, and the Victoria and Winnipeg Fringe Festivals. His work with the Parliamentary Players at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia has been acknowledged with a BC Heritage Award. Nicholas has been seeing plays at the Belfry Theatre since he was small, and so receiving the Annamaria Bamji Award for Emerging Playwrights is both humbling and inspiring.

Nicholas’ next project is a performance of Consider the Dongfish, co-written with Annie Konstantinov, in the Between Words One-Act Play Festival, on June 6^th.

The purpose of the award is to encourage the careers of playwrights between the ages of 18 and 29 years old. The award comes with a cash gift of $1,000 along with dramaturgical feedback. The inaugural winner of the award was Sarah Danielle Pitman https://www.belfry.bc.ca/the-belfry-theatre-presents-its-inaugural-annamaria-bamji-award-for-emerging-playwrights-to-sarah-pitman/

Photo Caption: Michael Shamata with Nicholas Guerreiro and Dr. Perry Bamji and / Photo by Peter Pokorny