ANDY’S GONE
By Marie-Claude Verdier | Translated by Alexis Diamond
BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective
With 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 took her first steps in play writing as a teenager when her tale Paradise.com was selected by Théâtre le Clou for Les nouveaux Zurbains série III in 1999. The text was published in the collection The Zurbains with Dramaturges éditeurs and in Jamais de la Vie by Éditions du Passage. She continued her career by studying at the École Supérieure de Théâtre de L’UQAM in criticism and dramaturgy and she did a master’s degree on the dramaturgy of the museums at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. In the fall of 2013, her first play Je n’y suis plus was presented at the french Theatre of the NAC and at Zones Théâtrales receiving two Prix Rideau Awards. The English translation of Je n’y suis plus was produced in London and at SummerWorks Festival in Toronto. Her play Nous autres antipodes was a finalist for Prix Gratien-Gélinas and selected by TARMAC, French International Scene. In collaboration with French director Julien Bouffier, she created Andy’s Gone, an adaptation of Antigone, which has been touring French high schools since 2016. In 2017, Marie-Claude received a residency with the CED and the Théâtre le Rideau (Brussels) for her sci-fi theatre project: Universe. She has also collaborated with Christian Lapointe on Sauvageau Sauvageau and Constituons, Marc Beaupré on l’Iliad and Benoît Vermeulen on Bilan.
THE DESERT
By Olivier Sylvestre | Translated by Leanna Brodie
BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective
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).
HAVEN
By Mishka Lavigne | Translated by Neil Blackadder
BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective
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 an Ottawa based playwright and theatre translator who works in both national languages. Her plays include Cinéma, Havre, Albumen, Vigile, Murs, Copeaux with Éric Perron, and Shorelines with artist Emily Pearlman.
