1828, Notre Dame Bay, on the northeast shore of Newfoundland. William Cormack, an explorer and anthropologist, has recently created the Beothuk Institute: an organization designed to prevent the extinction of the original inhabitants of the island. After learning that a Beothuk wo...
A collection of dramatic musical settings of poetry by twelve different Canadian writers. The poems range from serious to humorous, and touch on subjects including the beauty of nature, to ecology and urban animals, to language and poetry itself.
"Bentley’s libretto is based on Frank O’Connor’s translation of the celebrated 1780 Gaelic poem by Brian Merriman (1749-1805), a work surprisingly contemporary in its frank discussion of women’s sexual needs and how men fail to meet them. In Bentley’s adaptation Merriman himself becomes the opera’s central figure who falls asleep on a midsummer...
Svadba explores a "wedding theme, especially the night before the ceremony, when we are privy to private and ancient rituals between the bride and her girlfriends. The text is taken from original Serbian poetry but given a new context for our contemporary culture... A wedding is an important turning point in every woman’s life, usually steeped i...
Glimmer attempts to address the urgent matters and seemingly irreconcilable coexisting realities at the core of queer existence through multiple frames and lenses. Taking full advantage of an all-queer cast of performers, with whom the piece was developed organically through a series of discussions and workshops, this work intertwines the autobi...
A worker ruminates on the terrifying power of flight as he loads bags. Three passengers board and discover they’re sitting beside each other. During the pre-departure safety demonstration, a flight attendant longs for an escape from her mundane life and job. The three passengers think of their own isolation and longing and fear. The flight ...
Content warning: misgendering, mentions of sexual assault, and implied violence
Chrysaor and Pegasus, children of the gorgon Medusa, have been living with their aunts Euryale and Stheno. They receive a message from their dead mother telling the story of her assault and murder by their father Poseidon. Rejecting his mother’s family, Chrysaor g...
A young, extraordinarily talented musician is striving for perfection in her art. Her path to greatness? A magnificent wall.
Bursting with the compulsion to reach the top, she invokes Canadian icon, classical pianist Glenn Gould to guide her towards dizzying heights – but the path isn’t easy. Each brick represents her art, her rigour, and her...
The fictional tech company R.U.R., founded by couple Helena and Dom, dominates the A.I. software market and powers the now-ubiquitous androids that serve their human owners.
As Dom becomes more focused on growing R.U.R’s profits, Helena’s creative research leads to an unexpected technological breakthrough that pits the couples’ visions square...
Content warning: sexual harassment, violence, fire
A northern land, the end of winter. A cold, dusky pre-dawn on the edge of a mountain; across the valley roars a mighty waterfall. In this valley there are two farms, one poor - owned by Runa, a single woman - and one rich, owned by Olaf, who wishes Runa for his bride.
Content warning: mental illness, alcohol use, incarceration due to mental illness
Is it the clothes that make a man, or is it something other than?
Based on the satirical Nikolai Gogol story of the same name, The Overcoat centres on Akakiy Akakiyevich, a diligent man no one likes, who works the numbers best he can. But he can barely pay th...
This fifth installment of the Tapestry Explorations (TAP:EX) series offers a take on a Silicon Valley product launch, where audiences are the first to learn about Elysium, a new cloud-based technology that reimagines the afterlife as a perfect curation of our best memories. This fictional product draws attention to the modern world developing ne...
Content warning: explicit language, sexual violence, sexual content, alcohol, blackout drinking
Hook Up tells the story of three friends who have made it to university, each with their own unique desires and inner conflicts. Mindy is just excited to keep her high school friend circle together and finally get some privacy with her boyfriend. T...
Join George Taylor and the travelling Gilbert & Sullivan theatrical troupe The Vagabonds in a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the birth of his papermill. Unbeknownst to him, Jeremiah - the leader of a local small-potatoes bandit group called The Rift Rafters - just discovered a long-hidden secret abo...
Facing South is inspired by the life story of American Arctic explorer, Rear Admiral Robert Edwin Peary, and his contested discovery of the North Pole in 1909. The opera takes place in the inner landscape of Peary’s mind during the last hours of his life in February 1920, as he lies dying of pernic...
In a schoolyard full of kids, nine-year-old Elijah still feels alone. He’s had a lot of trouble from Big Billy Brett, who takes every opportunity to bully and tease Elijah and his friends. For comfort, Elijah brings his favourite kite to school. One day, they meet a strong new girl called Miriam. Miriam isn’t afraid of Billy and stands up to him...
Akakiy gets caught in rush hour and arrives late to find the head the department telling a sad story about encountering a homeless vagrant. Annoyed at being interrupted, the head of the department grills Akakiy on his little notebook of numbers. Akakiy explains he was using it to find ways to save money, which gives the head an idea. He’ll cut c...
Eurydice volunteers to test new A.I. technology that promises to capture your most vivid memories and curate your perfect virtual afterlife. Lab techs hand out eye masks to the audience.
Eurydice C is shown her Elysium with Orpheus in the garden - she is not sure she wants him there, but it fades before she can decide. The CEO brings her back to reality and closes the presentation.
The Vagabond Theatrical Troupe presents! Jeremiah gives George an ultimatum but has to prove himself first in more ways than one, and all is wrapped up in the finest paper package.
On the first warm spring day in the mountains, Olaf, a rich farmer, proposes to Runa, a poor farmer, only to discover that she is in love with the bandit Davith. Angered by this, Olaf burns down Runa's farm, and Runa escapes up the mountain searching for Davith.
After days of near catatonia in his cold apartment, the landlady asks Petrovich to repair Akakiy’s old coat, to no avail. Even his coworkers arrive to check in, but by then, Akakiy is unreachable. Akakiy is committed to a mental hospital. Once he arrives, the other residents encourage him to look at things a little differently. It turns out he h...
The name day party. Everyone is dressed to the nines, but Akakiy adds up to at least an eleven. They fawn over his coat, going so far as to toast to it. Akakiy forgets to count his drinks, and ends up completely drunk. He gets lost on the way home, winding up in the rough part of town. Akakiy asks two men for directions, but instead, they knock ...
Her health fading, Shanawdithit wonders if she’ll be welcomed into the spirit world after so much time with the colonists. Cormack tells her he must leave, and Shanawdithit gives him a sketch of his house to carry with him. He leaves the room to pack. Shanawdithit hears the spirits of her people calling her name. It is time. One spirit in partic...
Shanawdithit describes the last days of her family as they were pushed from their land and then hunted. She asks Cormack not to speak of their death, but of their life. Cormack is ecstatic and gets lost in the memories Shanawdithit paints. She breaks his reverie with the cold fact that the life she speaks of will never happen again. She collapse...
The taking of Demasduit weighs heavy on Shanawdithit’s heart. Cormack, unsure of what to do, tries to comfort her, saying Demasduit was treated well. Shawnadithit asks if white people actually care about her people, her story, because Cormack’s words are betrayed by the actions of his fellows, and indeed, his own. Cormack insists he will ensure ...
Cormack’s study in St. John’s, now Shanawdithit’s room. “Nancy April” reveals she can speak English quite well, and tells Cormack her real name: Shanawdithit. Cormack asks her where the rest of her people are, where her home is. Shanawdithit says simply: they are no more. Shanawdithit reflects on the loss of her people and the taking of her aunt...
Refugees are trying on clothes, when Dima and Konstantin enter looking for Oksana. Konstantin offers Father Alexander money for Oksana and Clara calls the police; Konstantin and Dima leave before the police arrive.
In Greece at a bar, three women are held captive: Konstantin sends Lyubia with a businessman, Natalyia with the Immigration officer who cuts her, and Oksana is bought by Konstantin at auction. Konstantin then offers to the crowd a gang rape just as the police arrive to raid the bar. Instead, he escapes with Oksana and Natalyia.
Though others are at first suspicious, Russian Konstantin convinces Ukranian teenagers Nataliya and Oksana to come work for him at a hotel in Romania for the summer.