Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC) recently held a special ceremony at Motyer-Fancy Theatre during the 2026 Playwrights’ Retreat, to present the Shortlist for the Third Annual Jenny Munday Atlantic Canadian Play Award. This award honours Jenny Munday, PARC’s former Artistic Director who dedicated 20 years of service to the organization, celebrating her legacy while providing vital support and recognition to playwrights from Atlantic Canada.
Shortlisted Plays & Playwrights:
Ifrit by Jean-Michel Cliche (NB)
There’s Nothing You Can Do by Cole Hayley (NL)
The Final Recordings of an Almost Extinct Bird by Stewart Legere and Ben Stone (Zuppa) (NS)
SubHuman by Natalie Meisner (NS)
From Stardust by Annie Valentina (NS)
333 by Jay Whitehead (PEI)
Dying at the Discotheque by Bernardine Stapleton (NL) was also recognized by the Jury as an Honourable Mention for Newfoundland & Labrador. The Winner of the Third Annual Jenny Munday Atlantic Canadian Play Award will be announced soon in a special ceremony (details to come). The 2026 Award winner will receive a $1,500 cash prize and a PARC membership. Both runners-up will receive a $500 cash prize.
Jean-Michel Cliche (NB)
Jean-Michel Cliche (he/him) is a theatre artist of Lebanese and French-settler descent living on the banks of the Wolastoq (Fredericton, NB). He is the Associate Artistic Director of Solo Chicken Productions, a theatre company with a mandate to create theatre and performance experiences that are challenging and delightful. Jean-Michel has trained across the country with Fight Directors Canada and is now New Brunswick’s premier fight director and violence designer. As an actor, he has had the great privilege to perform in major cities across the country as well as communities of all sizes throughout the Maritimes. He has over 15 years of improv experience and now hosts improv classes through Solo Chicken Productions. As an educator, Jean-Michel has taught drama with the University of New Brunswick and Theatre New Brunswick. He is currently touring his award-winning physical theatre/improv show, TILT (co-created with PARC board member Alex Roux!).
‘Ifrit’
“Are you watching? Are you comfortable?”
Inspired by Arab folklore and history, and shaped by Associate Artistic Director Jean-Michel Cliche’s Lebanese heritage, Ifrit is a new work. What begins as a Canadian-born Arab’s pilgrimage to his family’s ancestral home takes a turn when he discovers an orphaned ifrit – an Arab fire spirit – among the wreckage. Together, man and spirit learn to live, play and mourn within the ruins of the land. The story of Ifrit is told through puppetry, movement, food and storytelling.
excerpt
The sound of a bomb whistling straight for them. He rushes to look out the way Habibi left. The whistle grows louder. He just has enough time to breathe in. Shift. The Grandson enters the state outside of time or space that the Hakawati exists in. He takes in the audience.
GRANDSON:
Air. Wind. Breath. It’s more dangerous than you might think. We’ve always known the dangers of air. We have names for them. The way the Inuit have different kinds of snow. Or the way the Himbas of Namibia see more shades of green. Or the way white people know the difference between ivory and eggshell and bone. We know the wind.
We know the simoom. A scorching, burning air. Simoom means poison wind. The wind that makes you sick. Withers your crops and boils your livestock. So hot that it burns you up faster than your body can perspire. Licking the sweat from your skin, throwing your course salt like flung daggers.
We know the haboob.
A great sand storm. A wall of dust that can grow 100 miles wide. Blotting out the sun but illuminated from within with lightning… Bioluminescent. Air that forces its ways into your lungs, bringing along sand and measles and fungus. Biological warfare.
And now, we know a new kind of air. One we don’t have a word for yet. When a bomb explodes, it’s not the shrapnel or fire that kills you. It’s the air. Air moving so violently that it creates a change in pressure. One so dramatic that the difference between the inside of you and outside of you causes your lungs to collapse. They say if you hear an explosion, empty your lungs. Breathe out.
The simoom and the haboob. That air? It will kill you, but it doesn’t mean to. This air… It means to. We know because they aimed it at us. Sent it to us. Signed their names on the casings and said, “Let us take it all from them. Their land. Their lives. Their very breath.”
“Breathe out,” they say “You want to live. Give us your air.”
Breathe out.
He breathes out.
Explosion.
Cole Hayley (NL)
Cole Hayley is a writer from Elliston, Newfoundland and Labrador. He is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and an alumnus of Memorial University of Newfoundland. He was the recipient of the 2023 Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award, and a two-time winner of the Arts and Letters award. He was a member of the inaugural Poverty Cove playwrights’ unit, the IATI Theatre Cimientos Unit, and has attended Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal’s Gros Morne Residency, the PARC Playwrights’ Retreat, as well as the BANFF Playwrights Lab.
‘There’s Nothing You Can Do’
“Pleasure is the only defense against annihilation—”
There’s Nothing You Can Do, the first play of the “Saturn’s Return” Triptych, is a drama that incorporates elements of exhaustion theatre to reimagine the famous “dance epidemic of 1518.” Set in the modern day, it explores a collective quarter-life crisis between a group of recently reconnected friends through both text and movement.
excerpt
MIRIAM:
I didn’t sleep
the night I submitted
my thesis
I sent the email
and looked at the screen
and hoped
truly wished
that the light would burn
my eyes out
but I couldn’t stop myself
from blinking
and I blinked and
blinked again and
my hands were deep inside
the throat of my mother
as if she swallowed
something and I was
trying to rescue her life
so I stayed there
and dug around for
whatever she was
choking on and I felt
her voice and it felt
like a scared bird
and she gulped
that was the last noise
and she had said
a couple days earlier
when I asked:
“why don’t you wait and see?
science moves fast”
and she said:
“my love”
that’s what she always said
when she looked at me
either out of love
or
perhaps
sometimes
disappointment
and she said:
“do you remember when
Aunt Peggy died
and we went
to the hospital and she
was in her bed moving
around and making noises?
disgusting noises?
Aunt Peggy was grinding
her teeth
she grounded them down to
nubs and you were a girl
just a girl
and you looked at me
after seeing your aunt like that
a shell
no
even worse
a disgrace to her own memory
and you told me you were afraid
and I couldn’t say this then
but I was afraid too
because how could someone with
as much life and power
as my sister end up so
pitiful?
well that
I don’t want to be that
I want to go with all my teeth
all my teeth and a light on”
my mother went with all her teeth
that’s true
and her pupils were so bright
that they were drawing
me in like a moth
and I’ve never felt the fabric
of words before
but if I were to guess
what I felt in my hands
what I excavated from her throat
sifted away from the swamp of blood
was just that:
“my love”—
Stewart Legere and Ben Stone (Zuppa) (NS)
“Based in Kjipuktuk, Mi’kma’ki/Halifax, we aim to make extraordinary experiences that provoke the consideration of new perspectives and ideas. We prioritize questions over answers, and the discovery of possibility over the depiction of what is. This compels us to experiment with new forms and grapple with relevant questions of our time. We attempt to do this as generously as possible and have developed a unique collaborative process that favours the intuitive over the formulaic and thrives on the play between the imagined and the real. With each new project we attempt to do something we don’t know how to do and work with collaborators who bring new life experiences, perspectives or skill sets to the table. We make shows for home and for places far away, with the support of The Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, and The Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage, and Halifax Culture and Events. Zuppa is an affiliate member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres.”
“Going to see a Zuppa show is like being a child playing make-believe: anything is possible and profound observations arrive like fireflies in the dark.” — Laura Simpson (The Chronicle Herald)
“They are always smart, interesting and entertaining, and they always challenge the company and the audience to look at things differently, to feel something new, to imagine another reality.” — Naomi Campbell, Luminato Festival (Toronto, ON)
“They’re a rare beast – a contemporary theatre company that makes progressive, intelligent work that manages to also be challenging without being alienating, funny without being silly, innovative without being gimmicky. I’m always intrigued about what they do next.” — Matthew Austin, Mayfest (Bristol, U.K.)
‘The Final Recordings of an Almost Extinct Bird’
“Fellas, is it gay to miss someone?”
Fred has a lot on his mind. The origins of the universe, for starters. The fabric of space-time, too. The formation of the Earth, plate tectonics, the fossil record, gravitational waves, dark matter, winding valley roads, campfires, pottery cafes—the list goes on. There’s also the matter of the giant salty egg, and the man in the comfy blue chair. And the burning question: “Is this good? What I’m doing? With my time?”
The Final Recordings of an Almost Extinct Bird was written over a three-year period, which included fascinating collaborations and research conducted with astrophysicists, palaeontologists, archeologists, geologists, and cosmologists. It is an intimate and engaging deep-dive into the spiralling psyche of a person navigating chasms of grief, while reckoning with overwhelming climate anxiety, navigating the mind-boggling expanses of deep time and the origins of the universe.
Performed, composed and sound designed by Stewart Legere, with video and projection by Christian Ludwig Hansen, lighting by Jessica Lewis, costumes, set and props by Leesa Hamilton, and directed by Ben Stone, Final Recordings is where TED Talk, sob story, and cottage-core collide.
excerpt
FRED:
Things die twice, right? Once when they die, die, and finally, again when they’re fully forgotten. Piece by piece they disappear until – poof.
Their recipe for scones – the one they told you one hundred times but you never wrote it down. Poof. The exact colour of their eyes – brown? Green? Hazel? Poof. The sound of their voice – the person you love. Loved. Whatever. Poof.
I’m trying to remember something he said to me once…years before, in a department store parking lot. It made me laugh – a joke or something – and I just want to remember it, so I can hold onto it. I can…kind of…remember the words, though the words I remember are in the wrong order, and not as funny, or good as when he told it to me, but I can’t…really…I just can’t remember the sound of his voice. There was something about his voice telling it that gave it…you know. That made it. Cause it wasn’t really funny, honestly. It was more like…awesome.
What does he sound like? It’s slippery, suddenly. I’m losing it. Where did it go? His voice? It just kind of…drifted out of my memory – away. It’s somewhere in some other galaxy somewhere, I can’t remember it at all, even though he’s just over there, still with me, in the other room. All of a sudden it seems like he’s drifting away at the speed of light. Or being filled in with darkness. That’s how it feels. It’s gone, but it feels like it’s still here. Like dark matter, like dark energy – the shit that’s fuelling the universe, filling the void. Over 95% of the universe is made up of dark matter and energy. What is it? I dunno! They say there might have been a second Big Bang just for Dark Matter! Where the hell is it all?
The universe will die twice, too. But it will forget itself first, and then, sometime later, it’ll stop existing. The universe is still expanding, fueled by dark energy, galaxies are getting farther apart, faster, more isolated from each other. So fast, and so far, there’s so much space between everything, eventually…we won’t be able to see one galaxy from another. It’ll be too dark. It’ll be too cold.
Eventually we’ll forget what other galaxies look like, what light even is, what heat is, what everything is…we’ll just kind of…forget the universe.
I mean we won’t – we’ll be long dead. Thank god for small mercies. But I don’t believe in god, so…just…small mercies.
Natalie Meisner (NS)
Natalie Meisner is a lgbtqia+ playwright, a professor, a mother and a wife (not always in that order ;). She was born on the Mi’kma’ki / South Shore of Nova Scotia where she began her curious life by reading, with wild abandon, all books that came through in the town bookmobile. She has eight books to her name, was Calgary / Mohkinstsis’ 5th Poet Laureate and teaches creative writing at MRU where she loves helping other writers find their voice. Having known Jenny Munday and worked with her personally in PARC’s early days, makes being a part of this short list even more meaningful. We are all making Jenny proud by fighting to have Atlantic Canadian Stories hit the stages. nataliemeisner.com
‘SubHuman’
“Dog grant me the serenity to accept the fuckery that I cannot change, the courage to change the fuckery I can, and the wisdom not to throat punch anyone this week. Amen.”
Between the 1950’s and the 1990’s members of the Canadian Armed Forces were systematically harassed, disgraced and fired for being lesbian and gay as a matter of federal policy. This play is inspired by one such group of Navy women, some of the most highly trained and dedicated in our country, who undertook the important work of listening for protecting the eastern seaboard from submarines. Despite their loyalty and integrity, they were followed, interrogated and harassed until their careers were shattered and lives upended at the hands of their own government. In 2016 some survivors launched a nation-wide class suit that was successful and resulted in an historic settlement and full apology from the Canadian Government. While the characters themselves are invented, the play is inspired by true events. Because laughter is an important survival strategy for the many strong folks who came through this time, there is a lot of it in the play. This is a comedy about serious things. SubHuman was developed during the 2025 PARC Playwrights’ retreat.
excerpt
Lights up on Evie, sitting at a computer in her kitchen with a cup of coffee. This is her first attempt to write her impact statement. It is not going well. She is flipping her sobriety coinlike a coin toss. Heads, tails, heads, tails. We hear the sounds of the submarine listening station. The clicks of the sonar, the scratching of needles on the huge rolls of paper. The wind and the roar of the surf. Susan enters, she is dressed up and ready to go out for the evening. Evie, however, does not look like a person ready to pounce on a night out.
SUSAN: What do you think of these shoes?
EVIE: They’re great.
SUSAN: Do these jeans make my ass look big?
EVIE: I would really need to see both separately to make an objective decision on that.
Susan appreciates this but then notices Evie is not dressed and ready.
SUSAN: Let’s get a move on.
EVIE: Oof. Can I confess something? I suddenly just really feel like staying in.
SUSAN: Oh. I mean I’m already dressed…
EVIE: And you look amazing. I’d rather stay in and gaze upon your beauty, to be honest.
SUSAN: Well. Flattery will get you…places, clearly. I can’t cancel on Jan, though. I hardly get to see her
anymore. Plus, I want you to meet her.
EVIE: I want to meet her too, I just… (tries to find the words)
SUSAN: It’s okay if you need to stay in. (it’s not super ok)
EVIE: No, no. You’re disappointed. I’ll muster to it.
SUSAN: You’ll like her, Evie. She kept us in stitches the whole way through practicum.
EVIE: Stitches, see what you did there.
SUSAN: (pretend hair pat) Not just another pretty face. Anyway, she’s goodpeople. When you’re spiking IV’s and mopping body fluid, you find out who people are real quick.
EVIE: Like basic training. Run to till you fall down, get up, puke, sprain things, tear things,walk it off. Go to
sleep and do it all again.
SUSAN: And drink if off, too?
EVIE: Dear god, yes. Fair bit of that. What do you all do to cope?
SUSAN: Well, we are generally discouraged from being shit-faced.
EVIE: Pity that.
SUSAN: Need your wits about you to sift out the criticals from the attention whores.
EVIE: Whoa, you call them that?
SUSAN: Not out loud. One mutters, can’t be helped. (beat) The first floor knocks me out, but Ilove it too.
EVIE: The adrenaline?
SUSAN: Sure, but there’s more to it. To get there, assess the need and do what you can, it’s deeply satisfying.
It’s… I don’t know, can I say this, it’ll sound weird.
EVIE: I live for weird. Go on, then.
SUSAN: Fun?
EVIE: (impressed) Yep. Yes. That is… so true. I can’t help it I fuckin love you. There, cat’s out of the bag.
SUSAN: Excellent news as I reciprocate those feelings.
EVIE: You’re beautiful, you know that?
SUSAN: You’re hot.
EVIE: Ech, gross. We must be revolting to long term married people.
SUSAN: Foul, disgusting. Do you care?
EVIE: (makes a tiny pinch in the air) Not even a bit. I don’t want to spook you, though.
SUSAN: I do not spook easy.
EVIE: Things are moving really fast.
SUSAN: Three pairs of runners in my hall closet that aren’t mine… you have more than one kind of toothbrush
in the bathroom. Whirlwind romance then cohabitation? Seems pretty on brand for a couple of old dykes.
EVIE: Prime of life! Wait, are you saying—
SUSAN: Yeah, move in. It makes no sense to be renting two places.
EVIE: Really?
SUSAN: Try it out?
EVIE: Closer to work. Just a 20 minute walk to the DFO….We could get a co-dog! A puppy!!!
SUSAN: You want to have the ground rules conversation…
EVIE: Okay! I get up stinking early which can be a pain in the ass-
SUSAN: No biggie. I mean if we are moving in, do we want to be exclusive, or
EVIE: What? You’re seeing someone else?
SUSAN: No-
EVIE: Good, cause I’d have to kill her.
SUSAN: Evie!
EVIE: Kidding. (beat) Kinda.
SUSAN: No, I mean if we are going to live together it behooves us to have at least once conversation about
intimacy…
EVIE: What do you want to know? Did I sleep around? I mean yes, ok yes. After the navy, there was a period that is a bit of a blur…
SUSAN: No, that’s fine–
EVIE: Did I go home with any woman, gay or straight who gave me the time of day, sure-
SUSAN: Your prerogative. I am not slut shaming here, Evie.
EVIE: I considered it my civic duty to service any woman in need. Besides, I had to get that toaster oven.
SUSAN: Evie, this armouring, you’re doing…
EVIE: What do you mean?
SUSAN: We all want to look good, right?
EVIE: I don’t think much of this really makes me look good.
SUSAN: Let me rephrase. I mean we all want to look… a certain way. You loved ‘em and left em right? No one ever hurt you. Is it important to you that version? I’ll accept it if you want me to.
EVIE: What do you want from me like a number? A list of names?
SUSAN: No, no no. All we owe each other at this point is a clean bill of health. Is monogamy what you want?
EVIE: Well, duh. Don’t you?
SUSAN: At this point I would like to be with you, just you. I have had an open relationship in the past.
EVIE: Fuck, here we go. Who is she?
SUSAN: Her name is Allie, but I mean this was years ago.
EVIE: Be honest, isn’t “open relationship” is just code for I am tired of you, I want to fuck someone else.
SUSAN: Not at all.
EVIE: Have your cake, eat it too?
SUSAN: No, but so we’re clear, there’s nothing wrong with cake.
Annie Valentina (NS)
ANNIE VALENTINA (she/her) is a Queer Slavic-Canadian playwright, director and dramaturg, currently splitting her time between Kjipuktuk/Halifax and Tiohtiàke/Montreal. She holds a theatre degree from Dalhousie University and was formerly the Artistic Associate of Neptune Theatre. She is a past member of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors’ Lab, and a past Playwright-In-Residence for Pier 21 The Canadian Museum of Immigration. Annie has focused her entire career around the development of new work, often exploring themes like identity, culture, and the immigrant experience. Notable past credits include Cult Play by Scout Rexe (Imago Theatre, 2025), The Outside Inn by Elio Zarrillo and Sharon Bajer (Festival Antigonish, 2022) and her own play Ballad of the Motherland (Neptune Theatre, 2023).
‘From Stardust’
“Is what’s knowable more important than what’s possible?”
Being an introverted loner in a family of “strong personalities” is challenging at the best of times – and these are far from the best of times. Given how the last few months have gone for Cass, maybe actually the worst. But between a self-involved girlboss sister, an emotionally distant mother, and now Cass’ grandmother’s progressing dementia, it doesn’t exactly feel like falling apart is an option. Things could always be worse, right? As long as you have a secret David Bowie in your back pocket, are you really out of coping strategies? From Stardust explores queerness within multi-generational immigrant families, coming to terms with loss, and connecting with your elders. It was conceived and created in residence with Pier 21 Canadian Museum of Immigration (NS), June-November 2024.
excerpt
CASS
I don’t know what to do.
BOWIE
You sit them down – like this, let’s pretend. I’m you, and you be Zoe.
Actually never mind, I’ll play both parts. You be the audience.
“Sister of mine, I’ve something to tell you.”
“What’s that, o sibling?”
“My lover, she whom you know as Syd, has left me for another and shattered my poor heart.”
“Oh no, sibling dear! When?”
“Some moons ago, certainly enough time for me to have told you this before.”
“Gasp! I’m shocked. But as you are my beloved sibling, I shall forgive you. Only tell me this: are you alright?”
“Alas, very much not, sister mine, very much not indeed. In fact, I have been so glum I did not make to work once or twice, nor tell anyone I wasn’t coming. As an employer of persons yourself, you might hazard a guess what that/ led to.”
CASS
/Is this supposed to be helpful?
BOWIE
Shall I do your mum instead?
CASS
Please no. The thought of telling her anything gives me a panic attack.
BOWIE
You have to resume living your life sooner or later, luv. Best-kept secrets are for the dead. Besides – my own state of corporeality notwithstanding – you cannot undo things by pretending they didn’t happen.
CASS
I know.
BOWIE
Getting closure requires disclosure, I’m afraid.
My goodness, that came out profound. No wonder I’m a genius.
Jay Whitehead (PEI)
Jay Whitehead is an actor, performer, drag personality, choreographer, director, writer and teacher, with a diverse performance and training background, who currently resides and works in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. As a playwright Jay has written plays including CRABS, Tab & Landon, and the award winning UNSEX’d (which he co-wrote with Daniel Judes). Jay also co-created an original Electro-Drag-Opera: Castrati with Aaron Collier, Richie Wilcox and Kathy Zaborsky, and co-wrote a new drag musical adaption: A Very Carole Christmas Carol (also with Zaborsky) which premiered at the MFT last Christmas in Sackville NB. His play 333 embarks on an Atlantic Canadian tour this June. He is also working on his one-man theatrical memoir Die, Die Lavinia, which will premier this fall at The Island Fringe Festival in Charlottetown. His drag character Didi will return to the PEI stage this summer with the drag revue Queerly Canadian with her drag son: Castrati.
‘333’
“What we were that night was not arrested, or detained, or questioned. We were shamed. Shamed. But the jokes on them. Because we were already doing that to ourselves…and each other.”
333 by Jay Whitehead returns audiences to a pivotal moment in Queer Canadian History. Three fictional individuals are arrested as found in’s during “Operation Soap,” an infamous and real-life event when several bathhouses were raided in Toronto in one of the largest mass arrests in Canadian History. Among the Found-Ins we meet Honey, an aging queen with nothing to lose, Darren, a closeted, married man with everything to lose, and Eddy, the bathhouse’s long-suffering employee and a new immigrant to Canada from Latin America. Three individuals, three arrests, three separate reactions. As the Toronto Gay community rallies in the aftermath, prompting what is often cited as the beginning of Canada’s Pride movement, how will these three souls react, or not, when everything is on the line and the future of our community, dignity and livelihoods are at stake.
excerpt
HONEY:
First time? Don’t worry, nobody at the tubs will bite – unless you ask them to. And always make sure to say “please” and “thank you” when your mouth isn’t full – we aren’t barbarians after all – unless you ask us to be. Allow me to impart an etiquette lesson: If someone’s in the hallway playing with themselves, await permission. If sustained eye contact is achieved, brava, you may proceed. If eye contact is averted, best move on, especially if those averted eyes are accompanied by a less than subtle head shake. If someone’s left their door ajar, you can lookie loo from the hallway until you get a clear signal to proceed, or not, just enjoy the show darlings. Look, but don’t touch. The exhibitionists are fun that way. I like to watch. As I assume you do. Else, why would you be here. Perverts everywhere. And it’s our right to be so! The showers are fair game, as are the saunas and the jacuzzies. But don’t linger too long, foot fungus isn’t fun. I recommend sandals. Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the glory holes. I love the glory holes. It’s like playing whack-a-mole with dicks. Though it takes patience, pace yourself, I once caught lockjaw waiting too long at the ready.
I ought to wash my mouth out with soap. Ah, yes, soap. Our reason for gathering tonight believe it or not. “Operation Soap.” That’s what those pigs called the raids. Soap! Like we needed to be disinfected or something. And the destruction they caused: to the bathhouses, to our sense of security, to our psyches. Utter destruction. Akin to another ill-fated mother: the biblical Lot’s Wife. Because, like her, I had to look back at the destruction. I have to look back at our lost Gomorrah. In anger, for revenge, for justice. Yes, I looked back. I’m looking back now. And while I didn’t turn into a pillar, you’d best believe I was salty. It wouldn’t be the first time we were violated in our holy halls of cock-worship. And it wouldn’t be the last. No, my dears, this wasn’t the only time that archaic laws had been trotted out to police our lust; but here, in this very place, in 1981 is where I was. Which brings me, at last, to our story’s beginning. The night my water broke.
Shhhhh! Places.
Bernardine Stapleton (NL)
Bernardine Stapleton just wants to be inspiring to bad girls everywhere. This playwright, author, skit-artist, and actor is a National Siminovitch Playwright Prize finalist, as well as being the recipient of the Rhonda Payne Award for Theatre. She is the Artistic Director of Girl Power Inc. an indie feminist theatre company. She was the inaugural playwright-in-residence with RCAT, embarking on a year-long journey of creation for a solo play Hysterical Vadge (a tragi-episio-omedy about when a bad girl gets old) Other new works include Ophelia Swims, and the podcast The Haunted Doorbell. Her most iconic play is the bad girls’ bible Offensive to Some. Bernardine is devoted to her rescue beagle Georgie Girl, shared with best friend Nicole Smith.
‘Dying at the Discotheque’
“It’s almost a cruel thing to be a relic amongst what you made.”
Dying at the Discotheque is an experiment in, and exploration of, aging and dying in the professional arts. It proclaims: We are Old. It explores possibilities of engagement and staging that eschews colonialistic practices and skews limiting expectations of theatre. It is fun, and hard, and sad, and hopeful. It uses words as arias and allows for dancing in mind, body or spirit.
excerpt
APOLLO:
We fought, of course, fought like banshees, but I had a fire in my belly for it. Fought to get it in here, fought to get it built, then fought over it, fought each other for it, fighting still, but the fight is ancient times now, ghosts of bottles and rows. There was no such thing as culture that was ours, they look at me sideways when I says it now, nothing of our own, only what was trucked in first by the Yanks, then they brought over British Farce and what we had our own selves was considered low-brow. No such thing as culture or tourism. We got drunk, loaded, we got mad, we got over it, we carried a begrudging love for each other in our back pockets, the most enduring kind, the sort you hate to give in to but you have to at the end when the cancer comes calling. It’s almost a cruel thing to be a relic amongst what you made. Came in here one time and was asked why I was here unannounced. Over there is where we held down…while he raged over the wrong line in a play, blood streaming out of his ears, and…got drunk in the audience and spoke yarns while we tried to carry on.
And then something caught on, like a spark, it might have been the music first or was it the play we made like a quilt, something simple, but it caught on, and we blew on it, took it, ran with it, Jesus, weren’t we the hard-bitten celebrities, journalists almost, in the media, and the university was raging and folklore was a thing. And weren’t we Christers and traded partners like calling trumps, going 30 for 60 was a joke, my son, a joke. We had done The Tempest by then, the province was being dismantled in the unravelling called resettlement and we were catching those stories and building them but it was already a parody of where it came from.
The music died first, cancer in the throat, and it didn’t seem real but that seemed the start of the long procession. The Disco was the first gay bar downtown where we tottered up over the fire escape after hours to dance and row.
The sobriety came in a like a lion, not for everyone, hates to say it, and grief is like that hole was in the office one time for a long time until one day it wasn’t there and now it’s not. And who the fuck thought there’d be a crowd making a fortune off of Screech-Ins and Newfie is all in how you takes it.