GAMETES By Rébecca Déraspe | Translated by Leanna Brodie with British Equity WSW London Branch (London, UK)
Special thanks you to actors Miranda Heath, Jessica Ellerby, Clive Greenwood and the lovely Lola May for making it all happen.
How do modern young women negotiate love, ambition, and reproduction? What are the lines we can never cross, not even for a friend? In this age of trolling and tribes and irreconcilable views, do we ultimately love our opinions more than we love each other? Acclaimed Québec writer Rébecca Déraspe tackles female friendship, sexuality and fertility, self-fulfillment, and other stuff that shouldn’t be so damn funny, as Anne’s pregnancy threatens her relationship with her lifelong friend Lou. This poetic yet no-holds-barred two-hander features virtuosic transformations as two actresses play both the BFFs and all the people who have shaped their lives over the years. Another comic triumph from the author of You Are Happy, Gametes won the Montreal critics’ prize for best new play of the 2016-17 season.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT: RÉBECCA DÉRASPE A leading new voice in francophone playwrighting, Rebecca Déraspe is a graduate of the french language writing program the National Theatre School. She is the author of several plays performed and translated around the world including Two Years of Your Life, More Than You, Bear Skin, Gametes, Nino, I Am William, The Wonderful Journey of Réal de Montréal, Everywhere Else, Our Little Fingers. She is also author-in-residence at the Théâtre la Unicorne. She won the Critics’ Award for “Best Young Audience Show 2018” for her play I Am William, Best Drama Montreal 2017 for her play Gametes and the 2010 BMO Playwright Award for her play Two Years of Your Life.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: LEANNA BRODIE Leanna Brodie is an actor, playwright, and translator whose passions include lifting up the stories and voices of women, and championing a new generation of French-Canadian playwrights by. Her original plays The Vic, For Home and Country, The Book of Esther, and Schoolhouse (Talon Books) have been performed across Canada. Her translations include Christian Bégin’s After Me and Why Are You Crying?; Louise Bombardier’s My Mother Dog; Annie Brocoli’s Stardust; Rébecca Déraspe’s You Are Happy, I Am William, and Gametes; Amélie Dumoulin’s Violette; Sébastien Harrisson’s From Alaska and Two-Part Inventions; Catherine Léger’s Opium_37; David Paquet’s The Shoe; Olivier Sylvestre’s The Paradise Arms; Philippe Soldevila’s Tales of the Moon; Larry Tremblay’s Panda Panda; and multiple plays by Hélène Ducharme.
International New Translation Workshop in Isolation THE SHOE By David Paquet | Translated by Leanna Brodie with British Equity WSW London Branch
Special thanks to Lola May, Natasha Mendez, David Mildon, Caroline Moroney (London, UK), Sonja Zobel (Salzburg, Austria), translator Leanna Brodie (Vancouver, Canada) and playwright David Paquet (Montreal, Canada).
Synopsis: Melanie’s son Benoit, age 8, has a pain that won’t go away, so she takes him to the dentist. Naturally, this results in an epic meltdown. You see, with Benoit, nothing is ever simple. So of course, the dentist discovers that Benoit has a lot more than cavities inside his mouth… In the end, Melanie – with the help of a kindly alcoholic receptionist, and a dentist who prefers plants to people – must face the fact that her son’s problems are much larger than a simple toothache. Le Soulier is a bipolar comedy, a hilarious and unsettling play in which empathy triumphs over illness.
Cast size: 2F/2M
“…this show crystallizes the revival of Quebec’s feminist theatre, it is a vibrant homage to art, the place of women to challenge everything, to turn everything upside down, to move from the shadows to the light, from death to life, from imprisonment to freedom.” – Le Devoir
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT: DAVID PAQUET David Paquet’s first play Porc-épic received Canada’s highest literary award The Governor General’s French Language Drama Award. It has been performed in Montreal, Germany, Mexico, Austria, France and Belgium. For teenage audiences, he wrote 2h14 and Appels entrants illimités, and co-wrote Les grands-mères mortes, presented at the French language National Arts Centre . That same year he ventured onto the stage with his poetic solo show, Papiers mâchés. In addition to his approach to dramatic writing, he also touched on slam, storytelling, poetry, prose and spoken word.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: LEANNA BRODIE Leanna Brodie is an actor, playwright, and translator whose passions include lifting up the stories and voices of women, and championing a new generation of French-Canadian playwrights by transmitting their extraordinary theatrical visions into the English language. Her original plays The Vic, For Home and Country, The Book of Esther, and Schoolhouse (Talon Books) have been performed across Canada. Her translations include Christian Bégin’s After Me and Why Are You Crying?; Louise Bombardier’s My Mother Dog; Annie Brocoli’s Stardust; Rébecca Déraspe’s You Are Happy, I Am William, and Gametes; Amélie Dumoulin’s Violette; Sébastien Harrisson’s From Alaska and Two-Part Inventions; Catherine Léger’s Opium_37 and I Lost My Husband!; David Paquet’s Wildfire and The Shoe; Olivier Sylvestre’s The Paradise Arms; Philippe Soldevila’s Tales of the Moon; Larry Tremblay’s Panda Panda; and multiple plays by Hélène Ducharme of Théâtre Motus, whose acclaimed Baobab continues to tour China and the Americas after more than 600 performances.
International New Translation Workshop in Isolation STILL LIFE By Marie-Ève Milot & Marie-Claude St-Laurent | Translated by Rhiannon Collett with British Equity WSW London Branch
Special thanks to actors Chantelle St Clair, Molly Small, Jamie Newel, Mary J Tillett, Hemi Yeroham and the always awesome Lola May for organizing everyone. Artists participated from Vancouver and Toronto in Canada and London in the UK.
Synopsis: On her 30th birthday a woman locks herself in her apartment. Paralysed by fear, she examines the shards of her life with a mysterious young woman. This is a poetic and raw portrait of anxiety disorders and their causes.
Created with extensive research with le Centre d’études sur le stress humain, Chienne(s) was produced by Le Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (CTD’A). The production was presented at la Salle Jean-Claude-Germain to sold out houses at Montreal’s Centre du théatre d’aujourd’hui.
Actors: 2M/ 3F Running Length: 1h 45m
“…this show crystallizes the revival of Quebec’s feminist theatre, it is a vibrant homage to art, the place of women to challenge everything, to turn everything upside down, to move from the shadows to the light, from death to life, from imprisonment to freedom.” – Le Devoir
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS Marie-Ève Milot & Marie-Claude St-Laurent
Marie-Ève Milot & Marie-Claude St-Laurent are the Artistic Directors of Théâtre de l’Affamée. Mandated to invest in a (re) new Feminist/feminine theatre, they create complex characters that can be identified outside the binary mode of gender, question normativity and provoke new possibilities. Active members of Femmes pour l’Équité en Théâtre (F.E.T.), they co-wrote the revue Jeu action cry, addressing the under-representation of women in theatre, and created reference documents for students and faculty about the under-representation of women and the systems that marginalise them.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: Rhiannon Collett
Rhiannon Collett is an award-winning non-binary playwright, performer, director and translator based in Montreal and Toronto. Their work explores the ritualization of grief, gender performativity, queer/trans identity and the psychological effects of sexual objectification. Selected playwriting credits include Miranda & Dave Begin Again (2016 Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award); Wasp; The Kissing Game); Tragic Queens; La Somnambule (an immersive, site-specific adaptation of Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood); The Revolutions (commissioned and produced by Spiderwebshow, a cross-country collaboration featuring artists broadcast live from Montreal, Toronto, Kingston and Vancouver); There are No Rats in Alberta. Their theatre criticism has been featured in The Globe and Mail, Now Magazine, Intermission Magazine and HowlRound. www.rhiannoncollett.com
This translation was made possible by a grant from Canada Council for the Arts.
Pan Canadian New Translation Workshop in Isolation THE DESERT By Olivier Sylvestre | Translated by Leanna Brodie
With Olivier Sylvestre (Montreal), Leanna Brodie, Brian Postilian & Jack Paterson (Vancouver)
A winter night. A man speaks to you, from the other side of the bed. He speaks of a dream he has every night. He speaks to you from the pit in his stomach, the void that fills him. He tells you why he cannot stay. Why he will leave, soon, maybe, tomorrow. Playwright Olivier Sylvestre leads takes the audience into the depths of night. In a free form of musical performance, theatre and spoken word, he invites the audience into an intimate and dizzying dive in the heart of a toxic relationship where you becomes the illusory remedy for a wrong impossible to name.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT Olivier Sylvestre
Olivier Sylvestre is a Montreal based playwright and author most noted for La beauté du monde, which won the Prix Gratien-Gélinas and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for French-language drama (2015) and his short story collection Noms fictifs, which was a shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for French-language fiction (2018).
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Leanna Brodie
Leanna Brodie is an actor, playwright, and translator whose passions include lifting up the stories and voices of women, and championing a new generation of French-Canadian playwrights by transmitting their extraordinary theatrical visions into the English language. Her original plays The Vic, For Home and Country, The Book of Esther, and Schoolhouse (Talon Books) have been performed across Canada. Her translations include Christian Bégin’s After Me and Why Are You Crying?; Louise Bombardier’s My Mother Dog; Annie Brocoli’s Stardust; Rébecca Déraspe’s You Are Happy, I Am William, and Gametes; Amélie Dumoulin’s Violette; Sébastien Harrisson’s From Alaska and Two-Part Inventions; Catherine Léger’s Opium_37 and I Lost My Husband!; David Paquet’s Wildfire and The Shoe; Olivier Sylvestre’s The Paradise Arms; Philippe Soldevila’s Tales of the Moon; Larry Tremblay’s Panda Panda; and multiple plays by Hélène Ducharme of Théâtre Motus, whose acclaimed, Dora Award-winning Baobab continues to tour China and the Americas after more than 600 performances.
Pan Canadian New Translation Workshop in Isolation ANDY’S GONE By Marie-Claude Verdier | Translated by Alexis Diamond
Alexis Diamond (Montreal), Jenna Thorne (London, UK), Sabrina Vellani and Jack Paterson (Vancouver)
In a modern reimagining, a young teen follows the footsteps of Antigone the Rebel defying a contemporary Creon. The City is in a state of emergency and Alison believes there is something else going on… Andy’s Gone was produced by Acessor E sempre (France) and presented in Avignon.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT Marie-Claude Verdier
Marie-Claude Verdier was a dramaturge at CEAD from 2010 to 2013. Her first play, Je n’y suis plus, was produced with le Théâtre Français du Centre National des Arts in 2013. Her play Nous autres antipodes was nominated for the Prix Gratien-Gélinas. Andy’s Gone, a loose adaptation of Antigone for teens, was produced by the French Acessor E sempre and presented in Avignon.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Alexis Diamond
Alexis Diamond is a Montreal-based theatre artist and translator. Her award-winning plays, operas and translations for all ages have been presented across Canada and internationally. The 2018-19 season has seen the premiere of the family-oriented piece for orchestra and narrator Making Light, penned with Abigail Richardson (Calgary Philharmonic), and two other translations, for Talisman Theatre and Le Petit Théâtre de Sherbrooke. With composer Stephanie Moore, Alexis is currently creating Zoom-Boum-Boum, an electroacoustic piece for very young audiences (Jeunesses Musicales Canada).
