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Catherine Vidal on the creation of La mouette (The Seagull)
November 6, 2023Dear friends of French Theatre, So many things have been considered, put in place and tried out for the production of La mouette (The Seagull) since I wrote to you last January that this brief letter won’t be enough to cover them all. (By the way, in order to make the best use of the…
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Chansons pour le musée: Multifaceted experience
November 29, 2022Creating theatre with and for young audiences After the show, the podcast and the performance, Karine Sauvé’s work Chansons pour le musée is now available as a multifaceted experience for students and teachers. A video recording of the show, a teaching guide and a spontaneous writing…
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Un. Deux. Trois. Go!
November 23, 2022It was full speed ahead for NAC French Theatre’s first season, fully programmed by Artistic Director Mani Soleymanlou. Un. Deux. Trois., an epic performance written and directed by Mani, opened at the NAC in September 2022 before going on tour to eight other Canadian cities—Sudbury,…
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Special projects
May 17, 2022The French Theatre Collective One of Mani Soleymanlou’s first initiatives as artistic director of French Theatre is to open up a horizon for the next generation of performers. He wants to offer them hope, but above all a genuine work opportunity, by mounting an annual production steered by…
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Mani Soleymanlou’s great cycle of identity returns to the stage!
April 4, 2022The upcoming NAC French Theatre season promises to get off to a strong start. To launch his first season as Artistic Director of French Theatre, Mani Soleymanlou has surrounded himself with some 40 Francophone performers from across Canada to revisit his plays Un, Deux and Trois, which he…
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World Theatre Day: Irdens Exantus
March 25, 2022A return to playfulness as a driver of change I have no real idea what the future holds I don’t pretend to know either But I hope we’ll hold onto the playfulness we’ve managed to find in sad things I hope we’ll make it contagious To bridge the gap that separates us from the people…
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Interview with Karine Sauvé
November 11, 2021Chansons pour le musée is a show that’s available in several formats, including a podcast and an album. Can you tell us about these various forms and the motivation behind this multi-faceted project? For me, motivations often emerge from silence. Amid the fullness of life, I make room for…
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Nos ébranlements (“Our disruptions”): interview with the co-curators
August 19, 2021Nos ébranlements was originally a series of meetings and discussions by teenagers in connection with various French Theatre performances. Drawing on issues raised in those shows, they shared their thoughts, eager to articulate their relationship to the world, to others and to…
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G’zaagiin - Je te promets une forêt
July 23, 2021*English and French subtitles available An Abitibi experimental cellist, an Anishinabeg actress and traditional musician, and a Polish-born director, guided by the seasons and the Indigenous Medicine Wheel, to create an immersive space full of sounds, textures and poetic movement, where…
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Savèches à fragmentation
June 14, 2021If you let bodies speak, they say what they have to say. This time of movement dramaturgy on Savèches was an awakening of the bodies. Living bodies to transmit this rich poem.Monique Léger, movement dramaturg For ten days, we had the privilege of forming a creative bubble to explore the…
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Finding Our Light - World Theatre Day
March 23, 2021On this World Theatre Day, NAC Indigenous, English and French Theatres join with artists and audiences from coast to coast to coast to celebrate the many exciting ways theatre stories have been shared during the past year of profound change. On stage and off, we are finding our…
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A theatre project about the French language
December 7, 2020In 2019, Zones Théâtrales presented Oh! Canada : un forum sur la langue, a project led by Nicolas Gendron and Danielle Le Saux-Farmer. This workshop launched a vast research project on the state of the French language. From November 23 to 27, Zones Théâtrales welcomed Danielle and Nicolas…
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La Queens: Podcast mini-series
December 2, 2020In the depths of winter, the owner of La Queens breathes her last, leaving her remote northern Ontario motel to her two daughters. Marie-Thérèse Fortin and Dominique Quesnel play the central pair in this story with echoes of identity, written by Jean Marc Dalpé. Episode 1 Episode…
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C’est la faute de Jean Marc Dalpé
November 23, 2020It’s Jean Marc Dalpé’s Fault It’s his fault that I took the biggest risk of my life. There were 15 of us gathered in a room under harsh fluorescent lights; everyone was tense, especially me. It smelled like burnt coffee and dirty carpeting. This interview, for an academic position, was…
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Partir ou rester
November 20, 2020To leave or to stay. The dilemma runs through much of Franco-Ontarian dramaturgy, including some of its most iconic texts: André Paiement’s Lavalléville (premiered in 1974), Jean Marc Dalpé’s Le chien (premiered in 1988), Michel Ouellette’s French Town (premiered in 1993), and, more…
