Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls is the story of nine-year-old Fiona, who has come out as a boy. As he cuts his hair short and changes his name to Fin, his family works to understand and adjust to his gender identity. Dad accepts the change right away, but Mom struggles. We see Fin’s family grapple with their child’s transition with the best of intentions and, ultimately, begin to accept and embrace Fin for who he is.
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2018, Roseneath Theatre, Toronto
2020
Talon Books
9781772012521
included in Cissy, Three Gender Plays; Artist website: https://www.davedeveau.com/past-work/ladies-and-gentlemen-boys-and-girls
included in Cissy, Three Gender Plays; Artist website: https://www.davedeveau.com/past-work/ladies-and-gentlemen-boys-and-girls
Realistic
Told through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh family in the Okanagan Valley. With the bank calling and money low, will the Basrans be able to save their beloved orchard? The Orchard challenges our idea of what rural Canada looked and sounded like in the 1970s, offering a fresh perspective on our history, and a subversive look at ethnicity within the classical western canon
Stylized
Jiv is “Canadian. ” And “Indian. ” And “Hindu. ” And “West Indian. ” “Trinidadian,” too. Or maybe he’s just colonized. He’s not the “white boy” he was teased as within his immigrant household. Especially since his Nova Scotian neighbours seemed to think he was Black. Except for the Black people—they were pretty sure he wasn’t. He’s not an Arab, and allegedly not a Muslim—at least that’s what he started claiming after 9/11. Whatever he is, the public education system was able to offer him the chance to learn about his culture from a coffee table book on “Eastern Mythology. ” And then he had a religious epiphany while delivering a calf in Trinidad. By now, Jiv’s collected a lot of observations about trying to find your place in your world. In this funny, fresh, and skeptical take on the identity play, Jivesh Parasram blends personal storytelling and ritual to offer the Hin-dos and Hin-don’ts within the intersections of all of his highly hyphenated cultures. This story asks the gut-punching questions: What divides us? Who is served by the constructs of cultural identity? And what are we willing to accept in the desire to belong? Then again—it doesn’t really matter, because we are all Jiv.
