PERSEPHONE THEATRE . 2018-2019 SEASON

MAIN STAGE:

MOM’S THE WORD 3
NEST 1⁄2 EMPTY

By Jill Daum, Alison Kelly, Robin Nichol, Barbara Pollard and Deborah Williams
A Vancouver Arts Club Production
September 19 to October 3, 2018
The creative team behind the Mom’s the Word series presents a new chapter in their stories of family and fracas. Their kids are grown, their marriages have “evolved,” and their bodies are backfiring. Life doesn’t get any prettier, but it never strays far from ludicrous or poignant as the moms mine their personal history for every embarrassing detail. Filled with insights, secrets, and ribald humour, this brand-new show is both hysterical and deeply touching.
“Mom’s the Word 3 captivates with its heart, humour, and honesty” – Georgia Straight

The third annual Victoria Festival of Authors launches September 25, 2018, with a fantastic lineup of local and national authors, including Talonbooks authors Dina Del Bucchia, Daniel Zomparelli, and Jónína Kirton.

Join them for seven days of readings, discussion panels, and workshops.

September 25 to October 1, 2018
at various locations
Victoria, BC

Visit the Victoria Festival of Authors website for more information and to purchase tickets.

Authors Among Us
Wed Sep 26 | 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm | Guildford Library
The next session is Women & Writing: Indigenous Perspective featuring local authors, Lisa Monchalin and Jónína Kirton .

Call 604-598-7366 to register.
More information here

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of the Canadian classic Les Belles-soeurs. Gateway Theatre hosts Ruby Slippers’s production of the English-language Metro Vancouver premiere of Michel Tremblay’s iconic play. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit Gateway Theatre’s website.

September 27 to October 6, 2018
Gateway Theatre
6500 Gilbert Road
Richmond, BC

Join poet Fred Wah at Touchstones Gallery for a creative workshop that will consider juxtapositions between creative writing and images. Participants are asked to bring an image (photograph, sketch, painting, etc) of a local Kootenay waterway along with a short piece of creative writing (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction) that relates to the photo. Wah will introduce the topic with reference to his recent collaborative project with Rita Wong, on the Columbia River, beholden: a poem as long as the river.

Sunday, September 30
1pm to 4pm
Touchstones Gallery
502 Vernon Street
Nelson, BC
Cost: $20

Joshua Whitehead will be reading at this year’s Wordstock Sudbury Literary Festival, alongside authors Lee Maracle, Waubgeshig Rice, Margaret Christakos, Kevin Hardcastle, Kim Thuy, Natalie Morrill, and more. More information at wordstocksudbury.ca.

November 1 to 3, 2018
The Clarion Hotel
117 Elm Street
Sudbury, ON

Concrete is Porous
Act 1: Visual

An exhibition of concrete poetry.

November 3, 2018 to February 23, 2019
Opening reception November 3, 2:30pm to 6:30pm
The Secret Handshake Gallery
170a Baldwin Street
Toronto, Ontario

Featuring works by:

• bill bissett
• derek beaulieu
• Adeena Karasick
• bpNichol
• Gary Barwin
• Gustave Morin
• Grant Wilkins
• Barbara Caruso
• Judith Copithorne
• & more!

Talonbooks’ Fall Poetry Launch will feature readings by Fred Wah and Rita Wong (from beholden), Wanda John-Kehewin (from Seven Sacred Truths), Ted Byrne (from Duets), Tiziana La Melia (from The Eyelash and the Monochrome), Stephen Collis (from Almost Islands), and Christine Stewart (from Treaty 6 Deixis).

Tuesday, November 13
Doors at 7:30 p.m., readings at 8 p.m.
Pyatt Hall
843 Seymour Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 3L4

Cottagers and Indians takes a sincere and pragmatic look at the current conflicts between First Nations traditional water usage and property owners in cottage country who are looking to enjoy an undisturbed summer getaway. Written by Drew Hayden Taylor, an award-winning playwright, journalist, novelist and filmmaker, Cottagers and Indians had a successful debut at Tarragon Theatre in 2017. More info here.

November 20 to 25, 2018
at the Grand Theatre
218 Princess Street
Kingston, ON

“A deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in an entertaining all-Canada form of social satire.“—Vancouver Sun

The 24th Annual Aboriginal Education Conference takes place November 22-24 in Vancouver, BC.

The authors’ panel at 9:30 am on the 24th includes Drew Hayden Taylor, Nicola Campbell and TBA. Moderator: Jo-Anne Chrona

You can see the conference schedule here

In Amigo’s Blue Guitar, a college student’s life is given meaning when he chooses to sponsor Elias, a Salvadoran refugee, as a class project. When Elias arrives, his hosts Sander and his family learn what it means and feels to be a refugee and how to relate to someone who has endured such intense personal grief. The warmth and humour of the characters invite us to embrace the situation—be at once moved and threatened by it—and to consider how we ourselves would react. More info here.

February 8 to 23, 2019
at the Cranbrook Community Theatre
11–11th Avenue South
Cranbrook, BC

Cranbrook Community Theatre presents Amigo’s Blue Guitar from Feb. 8 to 23, 2019.

More information available here .

Written by Joan MacLeod

February 27 – March 17, 2019
Globe Theatre
Regina, Saskatchewan

Gracie is a dramatic monologue telling the story of a girl raised in a fundamentalist community that transports child brides between polygamist communities in both Canada and the United States.

As the play opens, Gracie is eight years old and moving with her mother, brother, and sisters from her community in the southwestern United States to a community in southeastern British Columbia, Canada. Her mother has been assigned to a new husband; she becomes his eighteenth wife. In five acts, Gracie plays herself at five ages and also gives voice to thirteen other characters, including her older sister Celeste – who becomes a wife at sixteen, a mother at seventeen – and her brother Billy, who is forced out of the community just a few years after the family arrives in Canada. Gracie is fifteen when the play ends, again with a journey as she herself leaves the community.

More information available from Globe Theatre.

Catch a new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Richard III. Camyar Chai ’s new adaptation for Seven Tyrants Theatre explores Richard III’s relationship with the powerful women surrounding this famous king. More info here.

March 8–30, 2019
at Seven Tyrants Theatre
1019 Seymour Street
Vancouver, BC

Written & Directed by Morris Panych
With Ellen David, Laurent McCuaig-Pitre, Marie-Ève Perron & Michel Perron

March 19 to April 7, 2019
at the Centaur Theatre
Montreal, Quebec

EMPIRE OF THE SON at the Persephone theatre.

A Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre Production
Written and Performed by Tetsuro Shigematsu, Produced by Donna Yamamoto

March 27 to April 10, 2019

As father and son, Akira and Tetsuro Shigematsu shared the same profession as public radio broadcasters. Each of them reveled in communicating with millions of their listeners, but they never spoke with each other. When Akira’s health begins to falter in his old age, Tetsuro bridges the gap between them with the only object they both understand: a microphone. Through visually striking live, cinematic vignettes, Shigematsu re-enacts moments from his father’s incredible personal history, from the ashes of Hiroshima to swinging 1960s London, and paints an intimate portrait of their evolving connection and the deep-seated love for each other that they both struggle to express.

Morris Panych’s Girl in the Goldfish Bowl opens with Iris, a precocious girl of ten, proclaiming, “These are the last few days of my childhood.” The death of her goldfish, Amal, she is sure, has been announced by the air-raid sirens during the day’s school drill. For Iris, there remain a few more days of life in a universe that is inherently ordered, where the spirit of her departed and ritually interred goldfish can, of course, be reincarnated in a lost and amnesiac drifter given to rhetorical questions of seemingly deep philosophical import. More info here.

April 4 to April 20, 2019
at the KordaZone Theatre
2520 Seminole Street
Windsor, ON

“An uncommon, quirky blend of humour and compassion.”
—National Post

Written and Performed by Tetsuro Shigematsu
A Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre Production

April 25 – May 4, 2019
Pavilion Theatre
Kamloops, British Columbia

A funny and poignant one-man show by former CBC broadcaster Tetsuro Shigematsu about his rocky relationship with his emotionally reserved father, Akira. From the ashes of Hiroshima to swinging 1960s London, this acclaimed play shows how Akira’s incredible personal history has influenced two generations. Through visually striking live, cinematic vignettes, Tetsuro paints an intimate portrait of the evolving connection between father and son, and the deep-seated love for one another that they both struggle to express.

“A celebration of the extraordinary in the ordinary”—Ottawa Citizen

More information available from Western Canada Theatre.