Solo Show

Chronicles of a War Child

Solo Show

Lapine-Moi / Rabbit-I

The first instalment Rabbit-I (2005) is a free study about the forces opposing the multiple personalities that define us. The piece is built like a children’s fairytale but somehow a little distorted. A giant blue rabbit, transforms into a caricatural hunter, on the quest for hunting rabbits, but along the way transforms into a “Nathalie Claude” searching for herself, trying to catch her own tail, her own essence.

Solo Show

Dividing Lines | Líneas Divisorias

"The one thing everyone knows is that we’re all going to die. Which means our loved ones are going to die. So how can we prepare for, experience, and honour their deaths? And does that look different if we have to make the decision to end their lives for them if they’re suffering? Dividing Lines | Líneas Divisorias is one woman’s story that offers a space for communal grieving through a celebration of life. Traced by the historic world events that coincide with her memories of independence and immigration, Beatriz reflects on how she spent over a decade caring for her mother—the one person she promised she’d be there for all the way until the end—as she lost her more and more to Alzheimer’s, and ultimately had to make the tough call to end her mother’s pain. A meditation full of light that doesn’t shy away from fear of the unknown, Beatriz’s narrative comes from a vulnerable and recognizable place of love that will invite our memories and choices in to heal." - from the publisher

Historical

Masada

"A one-person play about the history of Zionism. The play is told as a monologue through the character of an Israeli history professor who begins the lecture as a critic of Zionism but moves into an emphatic pro-Zionist stance, shifting from reason to passion or to put it another way from the rational to the irrational." - Arab Digest

Solo Show

The Auden Test

"A play about a poem about a painting about a myth - and what it means to be human. A queer tale, interweaving the lives and works of the poet W.H. Auden and the mathematician Alan Turing." - fromt the publisher.

Realistic

The Good Bride

Every night from 3pm to midnight, 15 year old Quiverfull Christian Maranatha Graham puts on her wedding dress and hopes that today will be the day her 28 year old groom Pete comes to claim her. Daddy, the paster, sent her to the Pullmans’ house to wait until God tells him it’s time for her marriage. Maranatha is so excited to submit to Pete's godly leadership in marriage and fill his quiver with arrows for Christ. But as her pre-wedding wait wears on and on, Maranatha has an increasingly difficult time ignoring Satan's constant whispering. Is she making an idol of her nightly Chick-Fil-A shake? If she has "hot shivers" for someone other than her fiance, is that adultery? And what should she do about this card from her estranged mother, who abandoned the family seven years ago?

Solo Show

Bang! Boy Bang!

Bang! Boy Bang! is a multi-media one-person show. The play follows a teenager named Rod Clarke as he struggles to retrace his activities at a party that took place one drunken night. His distorted memory eventually reveals his relationship with his troubled family, his chauvinistic brother, and a girl named Laura he met at the party. Bang! Boy Bang! explores social and sexual mores and the explosive issue of date rape.

Solo Show

Boys

ARMY SLUT BOY just wants real love. HAM and CHEESE BOY just wants to change the world. And TAMBOURINE BOY? Well... he's got rhythm. Lotsa rhythm. A one-man show about three BOYS (sorry... young men) and their lives, loves or lack thereof. Paul Dunn's tour-de-force solo show - which features the favourite "Tambourine Boy at Christian Summer Youth Camp" monologue - is a look at three 20-somethings in the late 90's, seeking to come of age.

Solo Show

Altar

Eugenio is a queer young immigrant living in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador. Less than a year has passed since his move from Mexico, but in that time, he experienced deep love and deeper heartbreak when his new boyfriend, Benjamin, inexplicably “ghosted” him. No, Benjamin isn’t dead; he just stopped calling and texting. And the thing is…Eugenio’s still not over it. Looking to the traditional Mexican holiday Día de Muertos (The Day of The Dead) and his father's previous experience with paranormal activities, Eugenio decides to build an altar (a central part of the Día de Muertos ritual) in the hopes that he will be able to summon his boyfriend’s ‘ghost’ to sort out the end of their relationship once and for all. Through the altar, Eugenio realizes that he has been something of a ghost himself to the loved ones he left behind in Mexico. Will setting up an altar be enough for Eugenio to forgive, forget, and love again? Or enough to help him heal the relationships with his friends and family far away?

Solo Show

Secret Life of a Mother

The raw and untold secrets of pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, and mothering are revealed in this true story of motherhood for the twenty-first century. A playwright writes an exposé of modern motherhood full of her own darkly funny confessions and taboo-breaking truths. One of her real-life friends, an actress, performs the piece, and through it her own experiences of motherhood start to surface. These mothers are not the butts of jokes, the villains, or the perfect angels of a household. This empowered and relatable play was written collaboratively between award-winning theatre artists Hannah Moscovitch, Maev Beaty, and Ann-Marie Kerr, with co-creator Marinda de Beer. Uplifting and full of love, Secret Life of a Mother is a generous and powerful act of truth-telling for anyone who has thought about, been, loved, known—or come from—a mother.

Solo Show

Deafy

"Deaf public speaker Nathan Jesper has arrived at his venue desperately late. As he launches into his speech, he soon realizes that things are not what they seem. Written and performed by Deaf actor Chris Dodd, Deafy is a stand-up/sit-down tragicomedy blending ASL, the spoken word and surtitles which reflects on the experience of what it is like to be a Deaf person in a hearing world and leads you on an unexpected journey of what it really means to belong." - Pi Theatre

Realistic

Everybody Just C@lm the F#ck Down / Everybody Just Calm the Fuck Down

After an unexpected night in a Regina hospital emergency room, Robert Chafe can’t shake the burning question of whether he’s Tennessee Williams or Dorothy Zbornak. Are his symptoms a harbinger of a terrifying undiagnosed condition, or is it all just in his head? Frenetic, tender, and sometimes scary, Everybody Just C@lm the F#ck Down is a stumbling folly about the aging body, mid-life anxiety, and what it means to live when you can’t know what’s next.

Solo Show

Let’s Run Away

Peter is putting on a show. He’s a bit stressed. In the show, he will read from a manuscript. It’s a large manuscript, but don’t worry, he’s only going to read the parts about him, and there aren’t many. It’s a memoir written by someone who abandoned him twice—once as a baby and once when he was a young man of thirteen. This person has figured prominently in Peter’s life for over fifty years now, but judging by the memoir, he has not figured so much in theirs. So perhaps it’s going to be a very short show? Again, don’t worry, Peter has other skills which he will share. And if Peter can keep his cool, and if the people who work at the theatre can help him set everything up, and if the audience can just give him a little bit of their time and their attention and their silence, maybe he can tell everyone something about who we really are and who we are to others and who we might be to ourselves when we’re alone. And maybe that can make it all a little bit easier.

Realistic

Crybaby

"A young woman falls in love for the first time, opening up a well of feeling about her Blackness, her identity, her childhood, sexuality, and womanhood in a poetic performance that uses memory and projections to ask the question: How can we be whole when a part of us is missing?" - From a FB post from the Black theatre workshop in Montreal

Solo Show

The Sender

Cil Brown loves her work. Her job as a Sender on a global racism-elimination project has resulted in a peaceful, logical and sustainable world. However, she encounters technical difficulties when a Sendee objects to restrictions on the lives of residents of White Supremacist Island.

Stylized

Pretty Goblins

From holding hands in the womb to holding each other’s hair back when they puked, twins Laura and Lizzie grew up only having each other. They couldn’t count on their practically feral mom, absent dad, or even the boys they liked. They’re polar opposites—Laura’s reserved while Lizzie’s reckless—but their shared mischievous giggles and dreams for the future kept them going. One day, Laura finds a familiar book of poems in Lizzie’s apartment and is dragged through their turbulent past. Together, the sisters relive their complicated history in an effort to make sense of the present. Framed by the beauty of a well-loved poem, this story of ferocious sisterhood, addiction, and the aftermath of trauma will leave howls echoing in your ears.

Stylized

The Breathing Hole

Stories of the Canadian Arctic intersect in this epic five-hundred-year journey led by a one-eared polar bear. In 1535, Hummiktuq, an Inuk widow, has a strange dream about the future. The next day, she discovers a bear cub floating on ice near a breathing hole. Despite the concerns of her community, she adopts him and names him Angu’řuaq. In 1845, Angu’řuaq and his mate Ukuannuaq wander into a chance meeting between explorers from the Franklin Expedition and Inuit hunters. Later, when the explorers are starving, the bears meet them again. By 2035, entrepreneurs are assessing degrees of melting ice for future opportunities. Angu’řuaq encounters the passengers and crew of a luxury cruise ship as it slinks through the oily waters of the Northwest Passage. Humorous and dramatic, The Breathing Hole is a profound saga that traces the paths of colonialism and climate change to a deeply moving conclusion.

Realistic

Half-Cracked: The Legend of Sissy Mary

"Sisters Sissy and Yewina have been on their own for who knows how long exactly. It's just them (and their hens) in a weathered farmhouse miles from town. Their rural, woodsy East Coast community has been losing residents for years, but the almost-forgotten stories have lived on for the sisters in different ways. While Yewina is more guarded and level-headed, dreamer Sissy has a flair for twisting fact with fantasy. When Scott, a folklorist from Scottsdale, Arizona, shows up at their door in hopes of chronicling whispers, he's in for much more of a story than he expected. This unique and quirky ode to folklore storytelling and to small lives lived large illuminates how living our own truths can make us legends." - from the publisher

Historical

The Death of the King

A retelling of Persian history. At the end of the Sassanian Empire, during the onslaught of Muslim invasions into Persia, the last king of Persia, Yazdgird III, finds death in an impoverished flourmill. Discovered red-handed by the king's army, the helpless miller, his wife, and his daughter must reenact their experience with the king to prove their innocence—or else face a horrible death.

Realistic

The Drawer Boy

"It's 1972, and a self-absorbed young Toronto actor, Miles, arrives on a small farm to do hands-on research for an upcoming role in a play about country life. He is sent to live with two middle-aged farmers, Morgan, who is not to thrilled with the self-involved young city dweller, and Angus, who is unable to remember that the young actor is even there due to a head injury sustained in London during World War II. Miles unwillingly stumbles upon the truth about their past and as a result, their lives are forever altered when art attempts to imitate life and the line between truth and fiction is crossed. What begins as an amusing portrayal of rural and urban culture-clash, slowly peels away layers of forgotten truths and lies, exposing hidden secrets of love and tragedy. Think farm life is boring? Think again! Think plays about farm life are boring? You be the judge." - The Drawer Boy Task Force, St. Thomas University

Realistic

The Best Brothers

Bunny Best has met her unfortunate end after a mishap at a Gay Days parade. Now her two sons, Kyle and Hamilton, have the task of arranging her funeral and caring for her most beloved companion, a troublesome Italian greyhound named Enzo. In the bustle of obituary-writing, eulogy-giving, and dog-sitting, sibling rivalry quickly reaches its peak and years of buried contentions surface.

Historical

Gertrude and Alice

Visiting the audience in the present day, Gertrude and Alice come to find out how history has treated them. The couple recounts stories of their forty-year relationship; of meetings with iconic artists and writers; and of Alice’s overwhelming, consuming devotion to Gertrude’s genius. Before they leave, they want to find out what has become of their artistic and cultural influence, and how their lives and work are—or are not—remembered.

Solo Show

Dividing Lines | Líneas Divisorias

"The one thing everyone knows is that we’re all going to die. Which means our loved ones are going to die. So how can we prepare for, experience, and honour their deaths? And does that look different if we have to make the decision to end their lives for them if they’re suffering? Dividing Lines | Líneas Divisorias is one woman’s story that offers a space for communal grieving through a celebration of life. Traced by the historic world events that coincide with her memories of independence and immigration, Beatriz reflects on how she spent over a decade caring for her mother—the one person she promised she’d be there for all the way until the end—as she lost her more and more to Alzheimer’s, and ultimately had to make the tough call to end her mother’s pain. A meditation full of light that doesn’t shy away from fear of the unknown, Beatriz’s narrative comes from a vulnerable and recognizable place of love that will invite our memories and choices in to heal." - from the publisher

Histotical

The Trials of John Demjanjuk: A Holocaust Cabaret

In 1987, John Demjanjuk was accused of being the Ivan the Terrible of the Nazi extermination camp, Treblinka, brought to trial in Jerusalem and sentenced to hang. The Trials probes the nature of guilt, the need for retribution, and the lessons still to be learned today from the Holocaust. Inspired by the great political theatre of Bertolt Brecht, the play features music co-composed by Christine Brubaker and Dora Mavor Moore award-winner Allen Cole.

Realistic

And then there was you

A mother addresses her child as they both visit milestones that offered them each independence, and in the process explores how the profound connection between mother and child evolves.

Realistic

Unit B Seventeen-Seventeen/”Unit B-1717″

A woman is trying to clean out her storage locker and say goodbye to the past, but an overwhelming feeling of dread forces her to confront the way she has historically subjugated herself to the needs of others.

Solo Show

Bang! Boy Bang!

Bang! Boy Bang! is a multi-media one-person show. The play follows a teenager named Rod Clarke as he struggles to retrace his activities at a party that took place one drunken night. His distorted memory eventually reveals his relationship with his troubled family, his chauvinistic brother, and a girl named Laura he met at the party. Bang! Boy Bang! explores social and sexual mores and the explosive issue of date rape.

Realistic

Assorted Candies For The Theatre

"Assorted Candies for the Theatre is a stage adaptation of Michel Tremblay’s fourth book of autobiographical sketches, Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, offering a rich and colourful cast of characters in this exquisite remembrance of childhood past in Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood. Much more than a mere adaptation of a prose memoir for the stage, in re-crafting his characters from the realm of thought and memory to the present action of the theatre, Tremblay generously reveals how it’s done. Here is the beginning of the narrator’s opening speech from the play: Memory is a mirror that chooses what it wants to reflect. Memory is a mirror that distorts. And cheats. And lies. Memory can embellish things or make them ugly, it interprets as it sees fit and draws its own conclusions. And all too often our memory leads us down paths that our conscience would advise us to avoid, but those paths seem so promising and irresistible. Memory revives events that never happened and obliterates important facts, it emphasizes the most absurd trivia and chooses to forget essential details. In short, our memory fabricates a distorted image of the past, then imposes it as gospel truth when it’s really just a sketchy interpretation—but always more interesting, livelier and more vivid than reality. Memory is the mother of invention. And the big sister of imagination." -- from the publisher.

Successions

After the unexpected death of their parents, two second-generation Italian Canadian brothers must come together to decide whether to hold on to the family home, which is full of secrets and hoarded junk, or save what’s left of their strained relationship. When Anthony, an uptight lawyer running for office, arrives with his former actor-turned-campaign-manager wife Cristina, they’re set on signing away the house and everything that comes with it. But Enzo, a disorganized plumber, and his pregnant girlfriend Nat have other plans. The pleasantries quickly turn to tense deliberations that unearth dramatically differing views of the group’s past experiences and present values. This clever family dramedy takes a close look at issues that affect modern second-generation immigrant families in Canada—class differences, antiquated old-world beliefs, and a crumbling Canadian dream.

Realistic

Smoke

Aiden’s ex Jordan arrives at Aiden’s door to confront her about the allegation that Jordan sexually assaulted her two years ago, forcing them to discuss their conflicting memories of their last night together and whether and how they’re going to move forward. With Jordan meant to be performed by either a cis-male or cis-female actor, Smoke is a nuanced examination of issues and perceptions surrounding sexual assault and consent.