Connecting artists and audiences across distance, language and culture
Siminovitch Playwright New Translation Project
Join us for our online digital workshops. Discover the leading works of Anglophone and Francophone Canadian theatre in both official languages, and meet the playwrights and their translators.
DATE
Sunday June 19, 2022
TIME
PT: 12PM | MT: 1PM | CT: 2PM
ET: 3PM | AT: 4PM
RUNNING TIME
2 HRS including Q&A with the playwright and translator
HOW TO ATTEND
Click the button below at showtime
FREE event. No registration required. Capacity 100.
Latecomers welcome – audience does not appear on screen.
This translation and workshop is made possible by grants from The Canada Council for the Arts.
In association with Théâtre français de Toronto and Théâtre Action
CRAWLSPACE
By Karen Hines
Translated to French by Mishka Lavigne
“A blistering commentary on our consumer culture. Pitch-black funny.”
– Jo Ledingham, The Courier
“Hines at her most horrifyingly hilarious.” – J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe & Mail
Award-winning writer and performer Karen Hines explores the darker side of real estate in CRAWLSPACE, a comic, Kafka-esque monologue that snakes through the brutal battleground of real estate, decorative twig orbs and the state of the human soul.
CRAWLSPACE is inspired by Hines’ true story of buying a fully detached ‘condo alternative’ in a hip downtown neighbourhood in a heated market… and how it all went horribly, nightmarishly wrong. The story became a National Magazine Award-nominated feature called My Little House of Horrors (Swerve Magazine). It was then adapted as a stage play and readings were performed for ‘boutique’ audiences in an Edmonton basement, a Northern Ontario dining room, and a tiny Toronto kitchen. CRAWLSPACE premiered publicly at Videofag, a cultural hub in a storefront space in Toronto’s Kensington Market.
Meet the Playwright & Translator
KAREN HINES
Karen Hines’ multi-prize-winning plays offer keen musings on modern life, combining such disparate elements as magical realism, pink-brand feminism and environmental disarray. Her solo performances and ‘little’ films featuring her darkly comic character ‘Pochsy’ have traveled the globe. Hines has collaborated as a director and dramaturg with many fellow artists, and her productions, plays and performances have seen venues like One Yellow Rabbit, Joe’s Pub (Public Theatre), Astor Place Off-Broadway, Tarragon, Videofag, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, NAC. For Festival du Jamais Lu 2022, Hines’ ‘Tous les petits animaux que j’ai dévouré’ was translated and staged (Mishka Lavigne; Lisa L’Heureux) and Hines’ real estate horror Crawlspace continues to micro-theatres across Canada in French and English. Crawlspace is being adapted as screenplay, and is now a CBC podcast (PlayMe; Radio One). Upcoming, Pochsy IV premieres January 2023.
MISHKA LAVIGNE
Mishka Lavigne (she, her) is a playwright and literary translator based in Ottawa/Gatineau. Her plays have been produced, read and developed in Canada, Switzerland, France, Germany and the United States. Her plays Havre and Copeau were awarded the Governor General’s Literary Prize for Drama (French). Her recent play Copeaux, a movement-based poetic creation piece with director É Perron premiered in Ottawa in March 2020. She is currently working on her new play Shorelines and her first opera libretto with composer Tim Brady. Mishka is a National New Play Network (USA) alumni playwright as well as a member of the PGC and CEAD.
Meet the
New Translation Team
Miriam Cusson | Dramaturgy
Miriam Cusson (she, her) is a director, actor, author, creator and dramaturg. Her work explores the poetry of violence and cruelty in contemporary society while questioning the foundations of our community. Her approach embraces the collisions between vulnerability and strength, between creation and destruction, and seeks to provoke a reflection on expectations, conventions and preconceived notions. She has often been called a rebel. It suits her perfectly. Miriam is the recipient of the Ontario Arts Council’s JOHN HIRSCH Award, the Greater Sudbury Mayor’s Award for the Arts and Laurentian University’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Miriam has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Theatre Department since August 2021.
Karine Ricard | Actor
Artistic Director of the Théâtre français de Toronto since 2021, Karine Ricard (she, her) is an actor, director, director and author. Recently she directed her first feature film Les Liaisons dangereuses : correspondances inédites. At TfT she performed in Molière’s Le Misanthrope, Marivaux’s La seconde surprise de l’amour and in English in The Numbers Games. Her play Les sept péchés capitaux was presented at the Des Feuilles Vives festival in Ottawa. She is currently directing Yassama et la calebasse aux cauris at the WEE Festival in Toronto.
Bianca Richard | Actor
Bianca Richard (she, her) is an actor and puppeteer who also writes for theatre and film. Originally from New Brunswick, she received her bachelor’s degree in drama from the Université de Moncton in 2013. Since then, she has navigated between acting on television (À la Valdrague, Newbies), theatrical creation (Radi, Les limites du bruit possible, ‘T”, Pépins) and producing short films (Out of tune, Al-Ghoula à la plage). Since 2019, she been developing the play Parler Mal in collaboration with Gabriel Robichaud. She is also the new co-host of the national youth TV series ONIVA! (Radio-Canada).
Yolanda Feratto | CREATIVE PRODUCER
Yolanda Ferrato (she, her) is a translator, theatre artist, and arts manager based in Toronto. She served as Artistic Associate with the London Quebec Culture Festival with whom she directed the UK premiere of Larry Tremblay’s The Ventriloquist and translated Porcupine by David Paquet. As an Arts Manager, she has worked with Tarragon Theatre and Driftwood Theatre and produced Gargantua’s work at Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory Theatre, and SummerWorks. She is also a contributing author of New Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Theory and Practice, published in 2014 by Methuen Drama.
Johanna Nutter | CREATIVE PRODUCER
Johanna Nutter (she) is a Tiohtià:ke/Montréal-based actor, writer, collaborator, translator, curator,
and dramaturg devoted to creating and supporting meaningful relationships through storytelling and play. Fully bilingual, her award-winning work has toured in both English and French throughout Quebec, Canada, and Europe. Johanna is the founder of Espace Freestanding Room, former curator of Centaur Theatre’s Annual Wildside Festival, and Artistic Director of interdisciplinary theatre company creature/creature. www.creature/creature.org
Jack Paterson | CREATIVE PRODUCER
Jack Paterson (he, him) is a Vancouver launched award winning Theatre Maker and Creative Producer. He was the the founder and producer of Mad Duck Theatre Collective (2001-2009), Vancouver’s only gender equity mandated theatre group, for who he adapted, produced and directed Vancouver first female Prospero and the Vancouver premieres of Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus. He is the founder of Bouche Theatre Collective, dedicated to bridging artists and audiences across distance, language and culture and the co-founder of Global Hive Labs., an international network of theatre makers. Jack has producer or co-produced over 50 local, national and international projects, workshops and events.
About our Partners
About Bouche Theatre Collective
Founded in 2012, Bouche has been bringing artists and audiences together separated by language, distance, and culture locally, nationally, and internationally. With a specific focus on the cross pollination between Canadian francophone and anglophone artists and the international community, Bouche reaches out through translation, multi-lingual work, and devised creation. www.bouchewhacked.com
About Théâtre français de Toronto
Théâtre français de Toronto (TfT) is a company performing repertoire and new work for Francophones and Francophiles. As a gathering place where everyone can meet, the company puts quality work at the forefront by offering a diversified and inclusive program. Through its programs, TfT supports, encourages, and spurs on the artistic emergence and professional development of its community.
About Théâtre Action
Théâtre Action is an organization that gives a voice to the Franco-Ontarian theatre community.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of
