Female playwrights in the GCTC spotlight
The Great Canadian Theatre Company’s upcoming season will give pride of place to works by female playwrights as its six plays sketch an arc that moves from upbeat, youthful works to heavier, more socially conscious presentations.
“I’m very deliberately coming out of the gate on a positive note. I’m acutely aware of our collective emotional exhaustion right now, and I want to make sure as we begin the season the audience is provided with oxygen, so to speak,” says Eric Coates, the GCTC’s artistic director.
When the company’s 2017-18 season begins in the fall, its opener will be You Are Happy, a millennial love story by Montreal playwright Rébecca Déraspe. The next play will be Ordinary Days, which again focuses on the concerns of a younger generation.
Coates says he’s making a deliberate effort with these two plays to reach out to a millennial audience and expose older theatre-goers to work from younger playwrights.
“I’m suddenly really aware of the extreme differences in taste between generations in a way that I wasn’t when I was younger,” says Coates, 54.
Furthermore, Ordinary Days stands out not simply as the season’s only work by a male playwright and by an American. It is also a New York-centred musical, which represents a huge departure for the GCTC.
“For our audience, it’s going to feel like they’re in a parallel universe,” Coates says. “They’re not going to recognize this as something that comes out of the GCTC’s typical canon.”
Coates also says he chose Ordinary Days as a counterpoint to Donald Trump’s victory last fall in the U.S. presidential election, to show “there is something in the U.S. that we care about and that excites us.”
The GCTC’s last play of 2017 is an adults-only, heavily improvised play Blind Date, which will involve the participation of a pre-screened male audience member.
The season’s second half includes plays that address “heavier issues” and “bigger questions,” Coates says. The first play of 2018, Ottawa playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s What A Young Wife Ought To Know, is a “really heavy-hitting social justice piece,” Coates says.
The play’s focus on a woman’s sexual education and rights resonated with Coates as another response to current politics. “It’s so alarming to me that, in the U.S., the clock is being turned backwards so radically right now, and that altright sensibility is creeping into everything I see on the conservative political front in Canada, and it’s terrifying me,” Coates says.
The season finishes with How Black Mothers Say I Love You and Gracie, two plays by female playwrights with female characters at their centres.
“It’s been decades and decades of men dominating all facets of the form,” Coates says. “It’s really important to me that we keep addressing the historic inequity in theatre as a practice.”
At the same time, he adds: “Frankly, these are the plays that are getting my attention when they show up, and that’s an interesting dynamic, I realize I’m responding more strongly to the plays written by women. It’s telling me something about the quality of their work.”
GCTC 2017-18 SEASON YOU ARE HAPPY
The GCTC’s season-opener is a dark comedy and a translation of Montreal-based playwright Rébecca Déraspe’s 2011 work Deux ans de votre vie. In its depiction of millennials seeking love, Bridget addresses her brother Jeremy’s suicidal tendencies by prowling the aisles of grocery stores looking for a woman for him. Sept. 21 to Oct. 8
ORDINARY DAYS
The season turns musical with this upbeat play focusing on the life of young people in New York. Adam Gwon, who wrote the play’s words and music, told the New York Times in 2009 that the play sprang from his own experience. “I was feeling I was having a patchwork kind of life, trying to be an artist, having a day job and having a creative life,” Gwon said. “I felt like I was bouncing around between bubbles of existence. I found myself wondering how these different pieces of my life fit together.” Oct. 31 to Nov. 19
BLIND DATE
This adults-only, one-woman show by actor, writer and two-time Canadian Comedy Award winner Rebecca Northan will be a deep dive into the realm of improvised theatre, as its protagonist, Mimi, who’s been stood up on a date, takes a willing, pre-screened audience member as a substitute. Northan’s play has toured across Canada, the U.S., and has played off-Broadway and in London’s West End since it debuted in 2009. Nov. 28 to Dec. 17
WHAT A YOUNG WIFE OUGHT TO KNOW
Set in 1920s working-class Ottawa, this comedy by Ottawa playwright Hannah Moscovitch finds its laughs in serious matter: a young, married woman coming to grips with contraception, marriage and sexual education. The play is a production by Halifax’s 2b Theatre Company, which first staged it in 2015. Jan. 16 to Feb. 4, 2018
HOW BLACK MOTHERS SAY I LOVE YOU
From comedian and playwright Trey Anthony, the creator of ‘da Kink in my Hair, this play tells the story of a Daphne and her three daughters, two of whom are left in Jamaica for six years. The play features an original, multi-genre score by Juno-winning composer Gavin Bradley. March 6 to 25
GRACIE
From Victoria, B.C.-based playwright Joan MacLeod, Gracie is a one-woman play that tells the story of a girl’s coming of age in a polygamous community. While MacLeod researched heavily, her play is centred around an entirely fictional character. The play premièred last month in Victoria, prompting the Globe and Mail’s critic to gush of Gracie: “She is funny and vulnerable, and utterly believable at each age, in each character. My God, I loved her. I laughed with her and wept for her.” April 23 to May 13
For subscription and ticket information call the GCTC box office at 613-236-5196 or visit gctc.ca.