I’ve been following the development of MISSING; an opera with text by Marie Clements and music by Brian Current since early 2017. There’s an article principally about the project in the Summer 2017 edition of Opera Canada. But I’ve yet to see the opera on stage. It’s had multiple productions in Western Canada but this July will see it’s first performance east of the Lakehead when Toronto Summer Music present it in concert format. That’s at Koerner Hall on July 24th.
Tag Archives: lauzon
The Maple Leaf Forever?
1939, written by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan and directed by Jani ,opened last night at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street theatre. The setting is a Residential School in Northern Ontario which is set to host the King and Queen as part of their 1939 tour of Canada. The Welsh, but fiercely anglophile[1], English teacher decides that putting on a production of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well would be suitable fare for the royals.

Prophecy Fog redux
Jani Lauzon’s one woman show Prophecy Fog, currently playing at Coal Mine Theatre, is essentially a remount of her 2019 show at The Theatre Centre. I still feel pretty much the same about as I did then; i.e. it’s an excellent and very personal show that will hold different meanings for different people. I was curious to see how my perception might have changed after four years in which ever weirder conspiracy theories have become mainstream so that stories of space aliens seem the least of it. Wes Anderson seems to have felt much the same in his latest film.

Sex, death and despair; a Ukrainian tragedy
To Crow’s Theatre on Sunday to see Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s Bad Roads; translated by Sasha Dugdale. It’s play set during the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s extremely skillfully and well constructed in six vignettes. Collectively they explore aspects of the conflict; especially sexual violence and the dehumanising effects that war has on just about everybody caught up in it.

Armadillos
Armadillos by Colleen Wagner opened at Factory Theatre last night. It’s really quite complex and I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to meet with cast and crew to discuss it last week. It’s simultaneously a play about two different takes on the myth of Peleus and Thetis and a sort of meta-theatrical questioning of which stories we tell and how they affect us. In the process it examines ideas about the origins of patriarchy and oonsent/non-consent in sexual relations.

Prophecy Fog
Jani Lauzon’s new piece Prophecy Fog at the Theatre Centre is a fascinating and very personal piece. I write “very personal” because it’s obviously very personal to her but also because I experienced it in a way that I’m sure was not the same as any one else in the room and I suspect that will be true for many people, perhaps most, perhaps all.

May listings
So May Day greetings and hello again. And here are some things you might care to see this month during your eight hours for “what you will”. It’s a bit belated for reasons previously announced but it’s here and I’m back.
Tonight at Lula Lounge at 7pm Tongue in Cheek productions have Democracy in Action. Several noted singers (Krisztina Szabo, Julie Nesrallah, Natalya Gennadi, Teiya Kasahara, Asitha Tennekoon, Romulo Delgado, Alexander Hajek and Stephen Hegedus) will perform pieces based on audience voting.
I Call myself Princess
Jani Lauzon’s I Call myself Princess which opened Thursday night at the Aki Studio is a really good show and an important addition to the dramaturgy around Reconciliation and Cultural Appropriation. I was reviewing for Opera Canada where I trust the review will appear in due course but don’t wait… go see it.
September
It’s September and the long, slow awakening after the annual aestivation begins. There’s not a lot on yet but what there is is interesting. The middle of the month sees Native Earth’s production of I Call myself Princess at the Aki Studio; previews from 9th to 12th September with official opening on the 13th and then shows until the end of the month. My interview with playwright Jani Lauzon is here. Also opening on the 13th is Tapestry Briefs at the Ernest Balmer Studio. Hear the product of the LibLab, hear Stephanie Tritchew, Teiya Kasahara, Peter McGillivray and Keith Klassen and eat tapas. It runs until the 16th.
I Call myself Princess
I Call myself Princess is a new “play with opera music” written by Métis playwright and actor Jani Lauzon which will première at the Aki Studio in Toronto in September in a production directed by Marjorie Chan. I heard about this project a while ago from Marion Newman who will headline the new production and was intrigued. I knew it was going to be about American composer Charles Wakefield Cadman and his Creek/Cherokee collaborator Tsianina Redfeather. I knew they did a touring show including Cadman’s song cycle From Wigwam to Tepee and that’s about it. It sounded like the worst kind of late Victorian cultural appropriation and “Redsploitation” so why would serious and intelligent Indigenous artists like Lauzon and Newman be interested? Today I spoke with Jani in an attempt to find out.

Marion Newman as Tsianina Redfeather.
Photo by Dahlia Katz. Design by Mariah Meawasige
