Pan Canadian New Translation Workshop in Isolation HAVEN By Mishka Lavigne | Translated by Neil Blackadder Translated from Havre (Francophone Canada)
The workshop included Mishka Lavigne (Ottawa), Neil Blackadder (Chicago), Johanna Nutter (Montreal), Art Kitching & Jack Paterson (Vancouver)
Elsie has just lost her mother, and Matt, is searching for his past. They’re brought together by the hole that opened up in the asphalt and the contents of the car that fell to the bottom. Haven is a play about loss, about absence, about emptiness. But it’s also a play about overflow, about too many memories and too many regrets. Haven speaks of friendships of necessity. Of the people we meet when we need them the most; those we meet when everything around us crumbles. Haven in the storm.
Recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Drama French Language (2019).
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT Mishka Lavigne
Mishka Lavigne is a playwright and literary translator based in Ottawa/Gatineau. Her translation work for theatre has been seen in Ottawa, Montreal, and France. Héritage, her translation of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun opened the 2019-2020 season at Duceppe in Montreal. She is currently working on a French translation of Karen Hines’ All The Little Animals I Have Eaten. Her translations of poetry were published in Ontario and Québec, included the recently published Cette blessure est un territoire, a French translation of Billy-Ray Belcourt’s Griffin Poetry Prize winning collection This Wound is a World. Her own works include Cinéma (Théâtre la Catapulte and Théâtre Belvédère.), Vigile (Théâtre Rouge Écarlate). Her play Havre recently won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama (French) and was shortlisted for the Prix Michel-Tremblay.
Barbed Wire: Stevie Skinner, JD Hunt, Johanna Nutter (tablet)
BARBED WIRE By Annick Lefebvre | Translated by Johanna Nutter with WSW British Equity London Branch
Special thank you to actors to Stevie Skinner and JD Hunt.
A strand of barbed wire has started to grow inside you. You’ve got about an hour before your lips are sewn shut. What will you say while you still have the time? What will be your last word? This play is written with gender fluidity in mind.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT ANNICK LEFEBVRE
Before completing her degree in criticism and dramaturgy, Annick Lefebvre had placed her buttocks in Wajdi Mouawad’s Rehearsal Hall for Incendie (Scorched). In 2012, Annick founded Le Crachoir, a company that examines the role of the author in the process of creating, producing and presenting theatre. She is the author of Ce samedi il pleuvait (Marc Beaupré, Le Crachoir, Aux Écuries, 2013), La machine à révolte (Jean Boillot, Le Préau / NEST-Théâtre, 2015), Barbelés (Alexia Bürger, Théâtre de Quat’sous et Théâtre La Colline, 2017) and ColoniséEs (René Richard Cyr, CTD’A, 2019). Her play J’accuse (Sylvain Bélanger, CTD’A, 2015) received the BMO Dramatic Writing Award, was a finalist for the AQCT Critics’ Award, the Prix Michel Tremblay and the Governor General of Canada Literary Award in 2015. Annick is currently adapting J’accuse for France (Sébastien Bournac, compagnie Tabula Rasa). Her work is published by Dramaturges Éditeurs.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR JOHANNA NUTTER
Johanna Nutter is artistic director of creature/creature, a polymorphic company born of Nutter’s passion for blurring lines between established divisions. Her work has toured extensively throughout her home province of Quebec, across Canada and internationally, in both English and French, to such venues as Soho Theatre (London), The Pleasance (Edinburgh), Les Halles (Brussels), and La Licorne (Montreal). Known for her intimate and personal collaborations, recent works include Tree Hug, OSCAR, and the multi-award winning my pregnant brother/my playwright sister (2009 – 2018). She won the PWM/Cole Emerging Translator award and brought CHLORINE (Longpré & Michon), which produced and directed at The Centaur (Brave New Looks 2016). She is currently working on texts by Annick Lefèbvre, Guillaume Corbeil, and Étienne Lepage.
Barbed Wire: Stevie Skinner, JD Hunt, Johanna Nutter (tablet)
Barbed Wire: JD Hunt, Stevie Skinner, Jack Paterson (London, UK) and Johanna Nutter (Montreal)
From Montreal to London via translator Johanna Nutter’s skype
By Sébastien Harrisson | Translated by Leanna Brodie
One summer night, a wild-eyed teenage boy bursts into the quiet suburban home of a woman he knows only as “Miss”, declaring that neither of them will leave her house until he gets answers for questions are too painful to ask.
September 2019, Bouche was kindly invited by the British Equity London Office to lead some new play development activities. We leapt at this opportunity to introduce British artists to francophone Canadian work.
Special thank you to the wonderful actors Joan Blackham, Eleanor Bennett, Viny Lad, Caroline Partridge and James Watterson, Vancouver translator Leanna Brodie joining us a 6AM Vancouver time by Skype, and Lola May for organizing it!
Meet leading Francophone theatre artists and their translators in a round table discussion.
Featuring Larry Tremblay, Chantal Bilodeau, Diane Brown and Leanna Brodie. Hosted by France Perras & Moderated by Gilles Poulin-Denis.
Larry Tremblay, Playwright Larry Tremblay is a writer, director, actor and kathakali specialist. He is the author of more than twenty books and is one of Quebec’s most produced and most translated playwrights. His work is noted for the diversity of genres it explores and has achieve international recognition. His novel The Bicycle Eater, published by Leméac, was unanimously saluted by the critics, won the Prix Roman 2003 at the Salon du Livres in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. In 2006 he was awarded the Canada Council Victor-Martyn-Lynch-Staunton Prize for his contribution to the theatre.
Rébecca Déraspe, Playwright
Rébecca Déraspe is a graduate of the École Nationale de Théâtre. Her graduate project Plus (+) que toi was presented at the Monument National directed by Martin Faucher. She was a member of the Nous sommes faits (comme des rats) collective produced by Les Biches Pensives and directed by Alexia Bürger. Her young audience work Le Radeau was presented at the Théâtre de la Petite Marée. IT’LL NEVER LAST (DEUX ANS DE VOTRE VIE) was produced by Les Biches Pensives room at Théâtre d’aujourd ‘ hui. Her theatrical adaptation of Les Merveilleux voyage de Nils Holgersson à travers la Suède by Selma Lagerlöff was presented at Théâtre de la Petite Marée.
Chantal Bilodeau, Translator Chantal Bilodeau is a New York-based playwright and translator originally from Montreal, Canada. Her play Sila recently won the Woodward International Playwriting Prize, First Prize in the Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival and the Uprising National Playwriting Competition. She is the recipient of a Jerome Travel & Study Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her translations include plays by playwrights Julien Mabiala Bissila (Congo), Sébastien David (Quebec), Mohamed Kacimi (Algeria), Koffi Kwahulé (Côte d’Ivoire), Étienne Lepage(Quebec) and Larry Tremblay (Quebec).
Leanna Brodie, Translator Leanna Brodie is an actor, writer, and translator whose work includes For Home and Country as well as CBC radio plays and opera libretti. She has translated plays such as Catherine Léger’s Opium_37 and Louise Bombardier’s My Mother Dog, Philippe Soldevila’s Tales of the Moon, Sébastien Harrisson’s From Alaska, and the Dora and Victor award-winning Baobab. She was nominated for a 2013 Jessie Award for her performance in Pi Theatre’s Terminus.
Diane Brown, Director/ Dramaturg Diane is the Artistic Director of Ruby Slippers Theatre and a multi award-winning director, actor, and. Diane has commissioned many English language translations of the best in contemporary French Canadian plays and produced and directed their award-winning English language premieres in Vancouver.
Heidi Taylor, Director/ Dramaturg Heidi Taylor is the Artistic and Executive Director of PTC and Vancouver-based dramaturg, director and performance maker and. She has worked with writers from across the country in the annual PTC Writers Colony. Heidi co-created and produced a variety of cross-disciplinary projects with Proximity Arts from 2003-2011, including Susan Elliott and Tanya Marquardt’s sited dance piece, Mal de mer, an Recent projects include: Sea of Sand, Transmission, and Cloudless (José Teodoro/BC Buds). Heidi holds an MFA from Simon Fraser University, where she taught intro acting for eleven years.
France Perras, Actor/ Producer A graduate from the University of Ottawa theatre department, France is an accomplished bilingual actress who produces, and has directed. She works in theatre, television/film, voice-overs, and hosting/moderating. She is the co-founder and Co-creative Producer of BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective. She has acted at Théâtre la Seizième on a variety of national tours including Jessie nominee for Outstanding Production “Lentement la beauté”. She received a Jessie Richardson Award for Best Ensemble Performance for “Clon@ge.PA“, and for Best Supporting Actress for “Porc-épic”.
Gilles Poulin‐Denis, Playwright/ Actor Gilles Poulin‐Denis is a graduate of l’Université du Québec à Montréal. In 2010 he was nominated for ‘Outstanding performance by an actor in a lead role’ at Vancouver’s Jessie awards for his role in Le Périmètre. His first full‐length play Rearview was produced in Saskatoon in 2009, receiving ‘Outstanding achievement in new playwriting’ award, and has since toured the country. The play was also nominated in 2010 for the Governor General’s literary arts award. Gilles is currently working on two new plays, one with the National Arts Centre’s Théâtre Français and the other for Vancouver’s Théâtre la Seizième.
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). Little Witch and Amaryllis, her translation of Pascal Brullemans’Vipérine (Theatre Direct), will be published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2020.
