HELLO friends, loved ones and all those joining us for the first time!
Welcome to Zee Zee Theatre’s 17th Season! It boggles my brain that we’ve been building this company for close to twenty years. At seventeen we’re no longer a child, but not yet an adult. We still have much growing and learning to do – but we know who we are and what we hold dear!
This season we are having hard, yet vital, conversations. Daring conversations that will hopefully support growth and transformation in ourselves and in our communities. Our season begins with Indigenous storyteller Dallas Yellowfly, who brings the spine-chilling tale of Qwalena: The Wild Woman Who Steals Children to life in his riveting multimedia performance and allegory which explores the history and far-reaching effects of the residential school system. It will be an evening of Indigenous storytelling, music, vendors and sweet treats, in honour of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This will be a co-presentation with Touchstone Theatre – a first for us!
Storytelling is at the root of our work, and a key part of hard conversations should be good storytelling. That is why we are thrilled that our annual storytelling project this year focuses on Rainbow Youth: 2-Spirit, Queer & Trans youth ages 14-17. With so many marches, laws and online hate-filled conversations being had ABOUT the children, our Artistic Managing Producer Bronwyn Carradine felt we needed to hear FROM the children. I added that if they couldn’t vote then they truly didn’t have a voice in this so-called democracy that we live in. Come with an open heart and listen to the truths these young people want to share.
Our Mainstage production continues these hard, but exciting, conversations with Andrea Scott & Nick Green’s Every Day She Rose – a theatrically inventive exploration of white supremacy, privilege, and patriarchy in supposed safe spaces. The boundaries between playwright and character melt away as two friends – both real and fictional – grapple with their shared but deeply opposing experience of witnessing the Black Lives Matter halt of the Toronto Pride Parade in 2016.
With protests to support Palestine happening at this year’s Pride Parades the conversations around how we show up as allies to our intersecting communities is a crucial one. So much of the response to this year’s protests are the same as those in 2016. Eight years later and so much of what was said online could have been taken directly from this incredible script.
I am also thrilled to have not one, not two, but FOUR new works in development! including a new Zee Zee commission by Sunny Drake – playwright behind “instant Canadian classic” (Calgary Herald) Men Express Their Feelings, our Mainstage show in 2022. Not to mention two alumni works from our own Queer & Trans Playwriting Unit. We continue to invest in established, mid-career and emerging Queer & Trans artists at every opportunity and truly believe in the transformative power of art and sharing the human story.
This season pushes us to be better allies and better humans. At the same time we believe in the transformative power of QUEER JOY and CELEBRATE the act of making art and the people who make, inspire, and support it. At Zee Zee hard conversations create thrilling theatre.
Come and celebrate what 17 seasons at Zee Zee Theatre looks like.
Cameron Mackenzie
Artistic and Executive Director
August, 2024
Challenging Conversations, Thrilling Theatre
Community Event
QWALENA
The Wild Woman Who Steals Children
By 3 Crows Productions
Presented in Partnership with Touchstone Theatre
An evening of Indigenous storytelling, music, vendors and sweet treats, in honour of the National Day for Truth & Reconciliation
Indigenous storyteller Dallas Yellowfly brings the spine-chilling tale of Qwalena to life in this riveting multimedia performance and allegory exploring the history and far-reaching effects of the residential school system.
Special thank you to sponsor Earnest Ice Cream.
In-Development
By JD Derbyshire & Dave Deveau
In collaboration with Greg Armstrong-Morris, Sabrina Symington and Rae Takei
Public Workshop | TBD
You Could Be My Safe Space delves into the complex and polarized world of trans-exclusionary radical feminism, dividing Vancouver’s queer and feminist communities, and the creative process behind writing it. Set during an open mic night at an East Van dive bar where anything is possible, including hearing from the playwrights themselves.
You Could Be My Safe Space is a meta-theatrical deep cut into how Queer art is made and how we as a society can elevate Trans voices while not speaking for them.
Community Event
Produced by Yanting Qiu
Curated by Brittany O’Rourke, Alan Pronger, Bria Shantz
In partnership with Vancouver Public Library
November 16, 17, 23, 24 | 2024
The fourteenth edition of our annual community storytelling project centres the 2SLGBTQ+ voices who often don’t get a say in their lives, bodies and identities. The Collections Project is a low-barrier one-on-one project in which people share true stories from their lives. It is designed to challenge stereotypes and preconceived notions of otherness, promote dialogue, reduce prejudices, and encourage understanding by connecting people who under normal circumstances might never meet.
Mainstage
By Andrea Scott & Nick Green
Directed by Diane Roberts & Cameron Mackenzie
Presented by The Cultch
Vancity Culture Lab
May 01–11, 2025
The personal becomes political in this collaboratively created work from Andrea Scott and Nick Green. After the Black Lives Matter protest at the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade, two best friends find their racial and queer politics aren’t as aligned as they first thought, and the playwrights behind them must figure out how to write about the fallout.
Every Day She Rose is a powerful exploration of white supremacy, privilege, and patriarchy in supposed safe spaces.
In-Development
Equinox by Robyn Vivian
Dramaturgy by Lara Lewis
Public Reading – Dates TBA.
A Trans genocide, love story set deep in the woods.
A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art inpatient treatment and psychiatric research facility with access to top doctors, boasting unfathomable success rates for any and all required therapy, treatments, and surgeries is offering a six-month, 100% covered stay onsite, in exchange for part-time participation in field research.
And Avis and Ursa are 100% onboard.
At first.
There’s something not-quite-right about this facility.
And when push comes to shove, creatures in captivity will make very interesting choices.
Equinox was originally developed in our National Queer & Trans Playwriting Unit.
Also in Development…
A Cloud of Ink in the Shape of Her
by Nathaniel Hanula-James
Dramaturgy by Sadie Berlin
Toronto, 1950. Halloween. Gladys Potter, scientific-luminary-in-the-making, swans into a gay bar for the very first time. She’s dressed as a cuttlefish. No one gets it. Also, she might be the only Black person there.
Toronto, 2023. Dolores, an archivist at a queer museum, stumbles upon the story of Gladys Potter. Raised colourblind by a white father and Black mother, Dolores yearns for a deeper connection to Blackness. When a mysterious being named Idontknowher appears, Dolores follows them down, down, down, into the Underworld, determined to meet Gladys. But all knowledge comes with a price.
Sometimes, that price is the last remaining ticket to a Mariah Carey concert.
Sometimes, it’s a meeting with your ancestors. Every. Single. One.
A Cloud of Ink in the Shape of Her was originally developed in our National Queer & Trans Playwriting Unit.
Plus a new commission by Sunny Drake!