Towards a truly national theatre in both official languages.
In 2020, five Canadian playwrights in both official languages (French & English) were nominated for the Siminovitch Prize, Canada’s top theatre award. Each of these playwrights represents a leading voice in Canadian playwriting as nominated by their peers.
This independent project was born from a discovery that the works of the playwrights nominated for the 2020 Siminovitch Prize and their contributions to Canadian culture were not available in both official languages. We imagine a truly national theatre community where the works of anglophone and francophone artists are available and promoted to audiences in both official languages.
free as injuns by Tara Beagun, Native Earth (2012) | Photo: Juan Camilo Palacio
Celebrating great Canadian theatre
ColoniséEs by Annick Lefebvre , Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (2019) | Photo: Valérie Remise
The
Translations
Each work represents a unique voice, unique approach to form, and a unique view on the Canadian experience.
We contacted each of the playwrights who shared our excitement for this vision. They each selected 1 piece from their body of work for translation. These works represent a diversity of leading Canadian playwrights from different regions, lived experiences, cultural and linguistic heritages and draw from across their careers–from early noted works to recent creations.
Our Creative Translation team is gathered from leading theatre makers in both official langauges from across the nation.
The award nominated and winning plays selected by there playwrights for translation are:
Anywhere But Here by Carmen Aguirre &
Raps created with Shad Kabango |
Translated to French by Emmanuelle Jimenez
Crawlspace by Karen Hines
Translated to French by Mishka Lavigne
ColoniséEs by Annick Lefebvre
Translated to English by Johanna Nutter
free as injuns by Tara Beagan
Translated to French by Charles Bender
Moule Robert by Martin Bellemare
Translated to English by Jack Paterson
Anywhere But Here by Carmen Aguirre, The Electric Company (2020) | Photo: Emily Cooper.
ANYWHERE BUT HERE
BY CARMEN AGUIRRE | RAPS CREATED WITH SHAD KABANGO
Translated to French by Emmanuelle Jimenez
“A marvelous machine of creativity”
– The Globe and Mail
“Aguirre’s think piece is a time-defying meditation on essential journeys of the heart.”
– The Georgia Straight
It’s 2020 at the US/Mexico border in Trump’s America. In 1979, a family drives back towards Chile from Canada. With past, present, and future encircling their journey, this profoundly poetic story is about the universal quest for home – in whatever form that takes.
A spellbinding blend of dark comedy and magical realism, Anywhere But Here is a vibrant celebration of Latinx theatre, with music and raps by Shad, that chronicles the many paths, real and imagined, we take to discover the truth — the truth about who we are, and where we may be headed.
ColoniséEs by Annick Lefebvre , Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (2019) | Photo: Valérie Remise
ColoniséEs
BY ANNICK LEFEBVRE
Translated to English by Johanna Nutter
“Sparing neither her words, her sharp intelligence, nor her heightened sensitivity, Annick Lefebvre offers us a work that inhabits the intellect, body, and heart long after… inviting us to stand up and commit to art, justice, love, community.”
– GG Award Selection Jury
“One of Quebec’s most fierce pens, we feel the full force of Annick Lefebvre’s writting in ColoniséEs”
– Gravel le matin, ICI Radio-Canada
A revolution (quiet), a month (historic) and promises (betrayed). ColoniséEs reflects the embodiment of our concerns of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Present-day Quebec; troubled, anxious, resilient.
Four years after the success of J’accuse, author Annick Lefebvre is back with her inimitable and uncompromising style. Her theatre takes up the challenge of being as intimate as it is collective, as denouncing as it is redeeming.
Recipient of the Michel-Tremblay Prize, 2019 and the BMO Dramatic Writer’s Prize. Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award 2019.
Crawlspace created and performed by Karen Hines (2017)
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, The 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.
free as injuns by Tara Beagun, Native Earth (2012) | Photo: Juan Camilo Palacio
free as injuns
BY TARA BEAGAN
Translated to French by Charles Bender
“…invaluable to our Canadian repertoire at this moment in time…flipping between extreme sensuality and unrelated humour were particularly ingenious…Tara Beagan’s interpretation of a pessimistic New England play breathes Aboriginal-Canadian life into a classic script.”
– NOW
Tara Beagan’s powerful and poetic look at blood ties, entitlement, inheritance and legacy and the ‘Canadian experience.’
Based on O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms, which in turn is the American retelling of ancient Greek tragedy, free as injuns arrives with the intention to symbolize and speak of the current state of Canada’s relationship with its Aboriginal and multicultural society using its characters: the white autocrat father, the three sons, a new wife and a newborn baby. Three sons despise their father and desire the land they believe they deserve. They all become deeply embittered when they find out he has a new half-Aboriginal wife – and inheritor of the land.
free as injuns premiered in the 2011/2012 Native Earth Performing Arts season at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (Toronto, Canada),
Moule Robert by Martin Bellemare, Théâtre de Belleville (2019) | Photo: Samuel Rubio
Moule Robert
BY MARTIN BELLEMARE
Translated to English by Jack Paterson
“With Moule Robert, Martin Bellemare offers us a text of dazzling formal mastery (…). This virtuosic inventiveness is at the service of the ethical questions dividing our society. In his own way, Martin Bellemare wrestles with the question that haunted Brecht: how to be good in a world that is not?”
– Prix Michel-Tremblay Jury
Robert Moule is a very ordinary man who works in a daycare. One day, he grabs a girl from the daycare by the arm and finds himself accused of sexual assault. He descends into a Kafka-like journey of inner decay and comic absurdity.
Moule Robert premiered in 2017, produced by Théâtre La Rubrique at the Mont-Jacob Cultural Centre (Jonquière). It has since been produced in Switzerland by POCHE/GVE, and in Belleville and Paris, France by Théâtre de Belleville.
-Recipient of the Prix Michel-Tremblay, 2018
-Shortlisted for the Prix SACD de la dramaturgie francophone, 2017
ARTS ACROSS CANADA
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