August 6, 2020 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A Pandemic-inspired audio drama Trilogy from André Alexis

Internationally acclaimed, multiple award-winning novelist André Alexis has teamed up with local experimental theatre company Volcano to create a new audio drama Metamorphosis: a Viral Trilogy. Launching on August 17 with new episodes added on August 24 and 31, the series is a co- presentation between TO Live, SummerWorks, and Canadian Stage.

Created in collaboration with Volcano’s founding Artistic Director Ross Manson, sound designer Debashis Sinha, and a trio of acclaimed Canadian actors – Bahia Watson, Becky Johnson and Diana Leblanc - Metamorphosis charts the progress of a fictional global pandemic in Canada’s largest city through three fictional diaries. These audio-journals - from a 13-year old girl (Lucretia); a 30-year-old woman (Kerri); and an 86-year old senior (Nella) - are funny, intimate, and often fantastical.

The first episode, Lucretia in Quarantine, centres on a 13-year-old caring for a 7-year-old sister who, in the absence of parents, has decided to adopt a baby racoon. Lucretia’s diary beautifully explores loneliness, love and family in a time of extremity. Lucretia in Quarantine launches on August 17 at www.tolive.com/metamorphosis.

In the second installment, Kerri Wonders, a 30-year-old woman takes a pill in a moment of abandon after years in quarantine. Kerri’s diary chronicles how the pill transforms her life in a post-pandemic world. Kerri Wonders launches on August 24 at http://summerworks.ca/programming.

The final episode of the series, Nella at 86, follows an octogenarian in a long-term care home at the start of a global pandemic. Her diary is a clear-sighted account from someone who is no stranger to loss. Nella at 86 launches on August 31 at csgrid.canadianstage.com/metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis marks André Alexis’ third collaboration with Volcano, their first dating back to 1995 when Ross Manson directed Alexis’ Lambton Kent leading to Volcano’s debut on the international theatre scene. “André Alexis is one of the most thoughtful and original writers Canada has produced in my lifetime. In Metamorphosis, he turns his astonishing talent, wisdom and depth of feeling to

1 charting a new human path through a global upheaval. It’s funny, moving and enlightening work,” says Manson.

Of the trilogy’s genesis, Alexis writes, “All of this came about as a game played during a pandemic. My partner’s daughter, Lea, and I were thinking about a way to keep busy. As Lea is sometimes an actor and I’m often a writer, I decided to write a monologue for her using as a guide my idea of what her “feral self” might be like. And so, Lucretia was born. From Lucretia and her predicament, the two other monologues came, monologues that were also explorations of personae of people I know: specifically of my mother (Nella) and of one of my closest friends (Kerri). Though I admit it’s odd to imagine people you care for in distress, there is something resonant and strangely comforting in accompanying them through catastrophe.”

“TO Live is proud to be one of the three partner companies hosting the premieres of this Trilogy. Born of the rich working relationship between Volcano and André Alexis, it’s a project imbued with the spirit of collaboration that has been such an essential source of support for the arts community during the current pandemic,” said Josephine Ridge, Vice-President Programming.

The three diaries each run approximately 35 minutes. For the full impact of the sound and music, they are best listened to through headphones. Transcriptions for Deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences will also be available.

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Additional Details

Lucretia in Quarantine Hosted by TO Live, August 17 - 23 Thirteen-year-old Lucretia is contending with how to care for her seven-year old sister, who has decided to adopt a baby racoon. In the middle of a deadly global pandemic, these two children attempt to maintain life with no parents. Both funny and moving, Lucretia’s diary beautifully explores loneliness, love and family in a time of extremity. Performed by Bahia Watson Link to listen as of August 17: www.tolive.com

2 Kerri Wonders Hosted by SummerWorks, August 24 - 30 A self-described, and avowedly “average” 30-year old woman is offered a tiny pill on the street as a years-long quarantine is lifted. In an uncharacteristic moment of abandon she swallows the pill. At first, she thinks it’s a prank. But over the following days, she begins to undergo some truly transformative and, for Kerri, extremely alarming changes. As her diary continues, Kerri must decide what to do with her brand new self in this brand new world. Performed by Becky Johnson Link to listen as of August 24: www.summerworks.ca Nella at 86 Hosted by Canadian Stage, August 31 – Sept 5 A resident of a long-term care facility, Nella slowly learns of a virus making its way across the planet. Nella is no stranger to loss, and, in fact, is well equipped to reckon with it. As this new global pandemic begins to take its toll, though, she begins to grow lighter – realizing she can not only deal with what is coming, but can embrace it. Her diary, with its clear-sighted and often acerbic octogenarian perspective, reveals itself as a beautiful and surprising assertion of life. Performed by Diana Leblanc Link to listen as of August 31: www.csgrid.canadianstage.com

André Alexis

André Alexis was born in Trinidad and raised in Ottawa. He is now based in Toronto. His novel, , is one of the most successful Canadian novels of the past decade. It won the Scotiabank , the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Prize, and became a global bestseller. André has also won the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the (for Childhood), a second Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for Days by Moonlight), and, for his body of work, one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards – the Windham-Campbell Prize. His other books include: The Hidden Keys, Pastoral (also nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize), Night Piece, Asylum, A, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid & the Wolf, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa and Lambton, Kent and Other Vistas.

André first worked with Volcano in 1995 – near the beginning of his career, and at the beginning of Volcano’s trajectory as a company. With Ross Manson directing, André’s Lambton Kent – a lecture by a Nigerian anthropologist about deepest darkest Southern Ontario – had multiple runs in Toronto and

3 Edinburgh – the latter (starring a young Yanna McIntosh) marking Volcano’s debut on the international theatre scene. Since that premiere, Volcano has grown into one of Canada’s most celebrated and award-winning independent creation companies. André and Ross teamed up again for Despair – Three Stories of Ottawa – a gothic storytelling version of André’s ghoulish stories about his adopted hometown, with music by Canadian classical composer Andrew Reed Miller. Metamorphosis marks André’s third collaboration with the company.

Volcano

“One of those companies that every great theatre city needs – bold, experimental and bubbling with ideas” – Toronto Star

Volcano is a Toronto-based live performance creation company. We work experimentally, collaboratively, and with an eye to making art that is socially and politically current. We work across boundaries of all kinds in this pursuit: geographic, cultural, and formal. Led by founding Artistic Director, Ross Manson, Volcano assembles hand-picked artistic teams that bring together the best possible people to tell the most relevant stories we can find – stories that deal with race, politics, history and now, global health – all the ingredients that make our time and place what it is.

With the arrival in the world of COVID-19, Volcano is pausing all live performance work and dedicating itself to an exploration of audio and visual forms that can be enriched by the skills of live performance artists collaborating with digital artists, writers and composers.

Artists’ Biographies

Becky Johnson is a veteran of the Canadian comedy scene currently based in Toronto. She is an alumna of the Toronto Second City Mainstage, has created and toured her own scripted and improvised shows internationally and has appeared in iconic Canadian plays including the European premiere of Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View and the world premiere of Sheila Heti’s All Our Happy Days Are Stupid. Becky has been nominated for seven Canadian Comedy Awards and has won two. On screen, Becky can be found in Baroness Von Sketch Show (Frantic Films/IFC), What We Do In The Shadows (FX), Workin’ Moms (CBC), Gary and His Demons (Blue Ant/Look Mom), Odd Squad (PBS/Sinking Ship), The Beaverton (Comedy Network/Pier 21 Films), Space Riders: Division Earth (CTV Extend/Hulu), The Amazing Gayl Pile (CBC/LaRue Entertainment) and more. Becky just won her first Canadian Screen Award in 2020 for writing on Baroness Von Sketch Show and has also contributed to and Because News (CBC Radio One) and This Hour Has 22 Minutes (CBC). She is currently developing several scripted projects of her own.

4 Diana Leblanc was in the first graduating class of The National Theatre School in 1962. She acted at The Neptune Theatre that year as a founding member, then went on to work at Stratford, Shaw, Tarragon Theatre, Toronto Free and theatres across the country. She filmed the series Swiss Family Robinson which is still on the air. In 1990 Ms. Leblanc started directing and from 1991 to 96 was Artistic Director of Théâtre Français de Toronto, for which she was awarded the Prix Alliance Française. At Stratford she directed many productions including Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1993 and 94. As a founding member of Soulpepper she directed several productions, The Maids, A Streetcar named Desire, Zoo Story, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Real Thing, and A Delicate Balance. Rehearsals were set to begin back in March in Stratford with Diana directing Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, Diana hopes the production will see the footlights, eventually.

Ross Manson is an award-winning director, and the founding artistic director of Volcano, an internationally acclaimed theatre company based in Toronto. Over the past 20 years, Ross has directed and or co-created many shows for Volcano, which have toured around the world, and won or been nominated for over seventy local, national and international awards (including Dora awards for Ross as a director, a play-maker and a co-producer), a KM Hunter Award for his body of work as a theatre artist, a Harold award for arts community service, and the Best of Edinburgh award for his production of Goodness, by ). He has also directed for various companies across Canada, as well as in Helsinki (Svenska Theatre) and in Munich (BeMe). Ross trained in England at the University of London (MA in Theatre, specialty in Directing), in Germany (Directing apprenticeship, Stadttheater Freiburg), and in Canada (Banff School of Fine Arts and Mount Allison University).

Driven by a deep commitment to the primacy of sound in creative expression, Debashis Sinha has realized projects in radiophonic art, electroacoustic music, sound art, audiovisual performance, theatre, dance, and music across Canada and internationally. Selected sound design and composition credits include productions with: Soulpepper, The Stratford Festival, Why Not Theatre, Project Humanity, choreographer Doug Varone, The Theatre Centre, Nightwood Theatre, Young People’s Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, inDance, Tribal Crackling Wind, Volcano Theatre, and Necessary Angel, and is the recipient of multiple Dora Awards for his work. His live sound practice on the concert stage has led to appearances at MUTEK, the Guelph Jazz Festival, the Banff Centre, The Sound Symposium, ISEA, Madrid Abierto, and other venues, and he continues to perform and release music under the moniker Upanishads. Learn more: debsinha.com

As an actor, Bahia Watson’s film and TV credits include: The Handmaid's Tale (MGM/Hulu); Star Trek: Discovery (CBS), Saving Hope (CTV) and Remedy (CTV). For the stage, her theatre credits include: The Virgin Trial; Bakkhai, The Last Wife, The Diary of Anne Frank (Stratford Festival), The Seagull (Crow’s Theatre/Company Theatre), Someone Else (Crow’s Theatre/Canadian Stage), The Penelopiad (Nightwood Theatre), DISS (Mixed Company) and A Raisin in the Sun (Soulpepper Theatre Company). Bahia co-wrote, produced and performed two live shows: MASHUP, pomme is french for apple (paul watson productions) and is currently working on her third. She can also be heard voicing numerous animated characters on shows like Total Dramarama (Cartoon Network); Clifford the Big Red Dog (Amazon) and Mysticons (Nickelodeon/YTV). Independently, Bahia produces her own music and videos, and is a freelance writer.

5 About the Presenters

About TO Live TO Live is one of Canada’s largest multi-arts organizations, operating three iconic venues: Meridian Hall, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, and Meridian Arts Centre. In addition, TO Live presents a full range of performing arts, theatrical, and concert events at these venues in both downtown and uptown Toronto. With these two hubs of creativity and content creation, TO Live has a unique place and perspective to activate creative spaces by inspiring local and international artists, connect audiences and to be the nexus for new ideas, elevate artistic potential, and be the catalyst for creative expression that is reflective of Toronto’s diversity. For more information, visit www.tolive.com

About SummerWorks SummerWorks is a leader, collaborator and community builder at the forefront of contemporary performance – asking crucial questions; nurturing artistic innovation; and presenting new works that reflect the complexity and diversity of our society. 2020 marks the organization’s 30th year as one of the country’s most preeminent multidisciplinary hubs featuring a wide variety of artistic programming including, music, dance, theatre, live art – and everything in between. SummerWorks now maintains activity year-round, committed to the mission of Expanding the Possibilities of Performance.

About Canadian Stage Canadian Stage's mission is to be the leading contemporary performing arts organization in the country. A collision of disciplines and cultures, Canadian Stage reflects the dynamism and complexity of Canada and is a vital artistic force locally, nationally, and internationally. In its over thirty-year history, Canadian Stage has employed thousands of artists and developed and produced hundreds of new productions. Many of the plays developed by Canadian Stage have been awarded and nominated for Canada's most prestigious literary and performing arts honours, including Governor General's, Chalmers and Dora Mavor Moore Awards. Throughout the theatre season, nearly 100,000 patrons attend performances and workshops in our three Toronto venues. Throughout our history, Canadian Stage has provided outstanding education and outreach programs cultivating a diverse audience demographic.

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Photo credits Metamorphosis (supermarket) image: Carlos de Toro Lucretia in Quarantine image: Quentin Bounias Kerri Wonders image: Burst Nella at 86 image: Nick Fewings Andre Alexis: Jaime Hogge

Media Contact Jeff Rohrer 416-368-6161 x 7131 [email protected]

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