single post related, no meta

Why it’s Possible

Hello to Ottawa in January! I am here in the nation’s capital, directing a show at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. It’s very cold outside…and it’s a dark time in the world.

This one-person show, with it’s byline “a play about parenting in precarious times” explores the perspective of a single mom who is navigating her child’s gender identity journey. At the same time, she is navigating her relationship with her own mother, who holds some different views about gender than her own.

Given the headlines from south of border, and the current polarization around issues of gender around the world  – and often in our own families – the subject matter of the show feels…almost a little too on-point this week. But I’m deeply grateful to be engaged in making theatre that is attempting to take part in the conversations dividing society and politics at this moment. Art doesn’t tend to change policy (as much as I sometimes wish it would!), but it does offer us – both as makers and as audiences – an opportunity to be together. To lose ourselves for a time inside of someone else’s story. An opportunity to learn, to share empathetic space with other humans, and through it, to grow our own capacity for productive engagement in this difficult, unstable time we live in. The creative team has been working hard to create something that transforms the materials of our concerns, our research, our lives, and our craft into something luminous. I’m very proud to have been part of such a dedicated, curious, open and brilliant team, and hope folks in Ottawa can see this work.

Why it’s Possible opens tonight, January 23, and runs until Feb 2.

Sending love for the darkness.