Now in its 29th season, Cahoots Theatre holds a prominent place in Toronto’s arts community, pioneering programming that reflects Canada’s culturally diverse landscape. Their focus is on intercultural encounters, the intersection of cultures and the innovation of form, contribute to Cahoots’ powerful and enduring vision. Working with artists of colour, and other marginalized cultures, Cahoots gives voice to unique perspectives through the development and production of new works, our mentorship opportunities and community outreach initiatives. For more information visit www.cahoots.ca.
About Cahoots Theatre:
Now in its 29th season, Cahoots Theatre holds a prominent place in Toronto’s arts community, pioneering programming that reflects Canada’s culturally diverse landscape. Our focus on intercultural encounters, the intersection of cultures and the innovation of form, contribute to Cahoots’ powerful and enduring vision. Working with artists of colour, and other marginalized cultures, Cahoots gives voice to unique perspectives through the development and production of new works, our mentorship opportunities and community outreach initiatives. For more information visit www.cahoots.ca.
2016 Season
Ultrasound
April 28–May 15, 2016
By Adam Pottle
Directed by Marjorie Chan
Starring Chris Dodd and Elizabeth Morris
A Cahoots Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille Co-Production Theatre Passe Muraille, Mainspace
Award-winning Saskatoon fiction and poetry writer Adam Pottle’s works are provocative and gritty, offering views of Deaf culture, disability and otherness in startling and contrasting lights. In Ultrasound, his debut play, he explores a subject much closer to home. Setting the play within the complex Deaf and hard-of hearing community Adam asks difficult questions of Miranda, who is hard-of-hearing, and Alphonse, her Deaf husband who struggle with the identity of their potential family. Will their child be hearing or Deaf? Complications arise when their personal perspectives towards Deaf culture brim to the surface.
Ultrasound will be performed in English and American Sign Language (ASL) with integrated surtitles and video projection.
Deaf Artists & Theatres Toolkit (DATT)
Supported by both the Toronto Arts Council (Open Door) and the Canada Council for the Arts (Cultivate), the Deaf Artists & Theatres Toolkit aims to increase the feasibility of collaborations and engagement between professional theatre companies, Deaf artists and Deaf audiences through the creation of a multi-media toolkit. This toolkit will be informed by Cahoots Theatre’s development and production of Ultrasound by Adam Pottle, as well as our Crossing Gibraltar integrated projection workshops. The toolkit will be publicly available and disseminated as a resource for the theatre community-at- large to hopefully, inspire and empower both theatres and Deaf artists alike. Cahoots has engaged Anita Small and Catherine MacKinnon as Project Manager and Deaf Community Consultant, respectively.
Hot House Unit
This year’s Hot House consists of 7 artists with works in various stages of progress. The unit exists to jumpstart creation, nurture stories – as well as the voices telling them – and see the creation through from vision in mind to product on the page. It is a place where artists can be each other’s support system; an environment that encourages creative curiosity, artistic collaboration, the exchange of theatrical ideas and exploration of different creation processes. Whether works are interdisciplinary, or text-based, or are only in an idea stage, or production ready, Cahoots endeavours to support the artists in their process. Returning for the second consecutive year are Amanda Parris, Flerida Peña, Jo SiMalaya Alcampo, and Playwright-in-Residence, Suvendrini Lena. 2014–2015 Artist-in-Residence and former Associate Producer, Leah- Simone Bowen and former Associate Artistic Director, Donald Woo switch gears and return to Cahoots as playwrights. Additionally, Cahoots welcomes emerging artist Rafael Antonio Renderos. Over the course of the season, creators will develop their work under the guidance of Artistic Director, Marjorie Chan.
CROSSING GIBRALTAR: ULTRASOUND
November 14, 21, 27, 2015 & May 7, 14, 2016
In 2006, Cahoots created an adjunct theatre training program for refugee and newcomer youth in response to our play about transmigration, The Sheep and the Whale, by Ahmed Ghazali. Cahoots worked with 20 refugee and newcomer youth, eventually hiring 5 young participants in the production as the Chorus. Based on this success, Cahoots continued to develop dozens of arts access programming, serving hundreds of newcomers from across the city of Toronto and beyond. The program has evolved to include artistic collaborations with a diverse range of marginalized communities, serving youth, emerging artists, adult creators and more.
For Crossing Gibraltar: Ultrasound, our desire is to encourage the form of theatrical projection design for 3 Deaf emerging artists and 3 emerging artists of colour, through a series of integrative video design workshops held in our state-of-the-art Creation Studio. The program will explore projection design itself, as well as how movement and live stage action can be incorporated into a performance. In the winter, the participants will attend an appropriate interpreted theatre performance. The program will culminate in the spring with a pre-show showcase during the run of Ultrasound, along with a reception. All the participants would additionally receive travel subsidies, and honorariums. This program is supported by Ontario Arts Council and Theatre Ontario.
Co-Facilitators – Catherine MacKinnon and Gein Wong, Assistant Facilitator – Jasmine Chen
LIFT OFF! Festival 2016
June 17–18, 2016
A free community festival featuring excerpts, performances, workshop readings and masterclasses. Originally conceived in 1993, LIFT OFF was a series of new play readings ready for the stage. In 2006, Cahoots toured to Hong Kong to present a reading series from Chinese-Canadian writers. In 2013, Cahoots revived the festival, with the intention of showcasing new plays, welcoming the community into the Cahoots Creation Studio and offering educational opportunities. Our festival this season will showcase The Enchanted Loom, the powerful debut work from our playwright-in-residence, Suvendrini Lena. Set near the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, this delicate work about a fractured Tamil family will premiere in Cahoots’ 30th anniversary season in 2016–2017.
For more information visit www.cahoots.ca.
