After a nationwide call for submissions, Vancouver’s Realwheels Theatre has named Kirsten Kirsch for its inaugural Playwright-in-Residence Award.

The residency for a playwright who lives with a disability will start in 2020. Kirsch spent 20 years in the Alberta theatre scene, and released the EP Kirsch Royale in 2013, as well as this year's single “Firefly”, off the forthcoming five-song EP Blue Roses. Now based in Toronto, Kirsch is working on her first original musical, GIMPY.

Kirsch will be able to further develop that project with this new residency. As part of it, she receives a $7,000 financial award, and will be supported in the development of a musical, a genre Realwheels has yet to explore.

GIMPY is the story of a young woman coming of age, determined to realize her lifelong dream of working as a dancer in musical theatre, against pressures to choose a more stable career.

The Realwheels selection committee also named two finalists, who’ll each receive a $250 encouragement award: playwrights Yousef Kadoura and Mugabi Byenkya.

Realwheels is devoted to producing and creating performances that deepen the understanding of the disability experience, practising inclusion and integration of disability on- and off-stage.

"There is a very strong wave of emerging talent with unique perspectives on creative and authentic representations of disability," Realwheels Theatre artistic director Rena Cohen said in a press statement about the award and the submissions that came in from across the country.