SummerWorks Guide: Autobiographical Shows
SUMMERWORKS SHOWS
Autobiographical
ALMEIDA THE GLORIOUS, by Nicole Acaso, Zainab Egbeyemi, Karis Jones-Pard, Jamie Kasiama, Destiny Laldeo, Caroline Manjaly, Morgan, Adri Almeida, Rofiat Olusanya, and Kaitlynn Rodgers
The AMY Project’s young creators present this original creation exploring personal power, relationships with our ancestors and descendants, and how our given and chosen names shape us.
THE ARCHIVIST, by Shaista Latif
Shaista Latif is a lot of different people. She’s created them all to serve you. War, Sex, Money and Art has shaped her places in the world. As a response, Shaista makes an archive of music, text, video and stories to see if she can create one identity that will serve all.
BOYS IN CHAIRS, by Andrew Gurza, Frank Hull, Ken Harrower, Brian Postalian and Jonathan Seinen
A fun, sexy, and honest exploration of three men’s experiences as queer disabled men. Andrew Gurza, Frank Hull and Ken Harrower have come together to speak to experiences that rarely, if ever, are seen on stage. Immediate and intimate, provocative and personal, Boys In Chairs brings a queer perspective to conversations around sex and disability.
LET’S TRY THIS STANDING, by Gillian Clark
Six years ago, Gillian was hit by an SUV. She was on the sidewalk. Now, Gillian is a professional theatre artist. Let’s Try This Standing is about shitting on nurses, having sex with atrophied muscles, and being massaged by a therapist as he eats a bagel. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it does let us be in a room together and be honest about how okay we are.
REASSEMBLED, SLIGHTLY ASKEW, by Shannon Yee
An autobiographical, audio-based artwork about Shannon’s experience of falling critically ill with a rare brain infection and her journey of rehabilitation with an acquired brain injury. Experience the show through headphones in a hospital bed, where you will enter a three-dimensional soundscape and viscerally experience Shannon’s medical journey and re-integration into the world with a hidden disability.
SOMEONE BETWEEN, by Chantria Tram
Beginning with the story of her family’s escape from Cambodia, playwright and performer Chantria Tram chronicles her struggle to balance the traditional values of her Khmer parents with her own emerging beliefs. Someone Between is a humorous, emotional, and vulnerable contemplation of cultural adaptation, migration, and the place between who we are, who we were, and who we are becoming.
WHAT LINDA SAID, by Priscila Uppal
Linda Griffiths was an iconic Canadian playwright and actress. Priscila Uppal is a poet. When Linda was fighting breast cancer, Priscila was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer called synovial sarcoma. During Priscila’s surgery, Linda passed away. But during Priscila’s chemotherapy, Linda unexpectedly returned and the two friends engaged in magical, insightful, and bitingly funny conversations about their experiences – and their understanding of the present and the beyond.
See the rest of the guide here.
The SummerWorks Performance Festival is on in Toronto from August 3 – 13.
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