News

Factory Theatre and Native Performing Arts Present The Unplugging

Published

9 years ago

03/04/2015

Article Views: 562

In an instant, electricity all over the world stops flowing and humanity is left in the dark. Factory and Native Earth Performing Arts present the Toronto premiere of THE UNPLUGGING by Yvette Nolan, directed by Nina Lee Aquino, and winner of the 2013 Jessie Award for Outstanding New Play (Vancouver). The show stars two veterans of the Toronto theatre community, Diana Belshaw and Allegra Fulton, and features newcomer Umed Amin.

Cast out of their community for being deemed unable to contribute to a post-apocalyptic society, two aging Indigenous women are forced to begin a new life, living off the land as their ancestors did before them. As the duo begin to settle into their new existence, they encounter a young man whose presence threatens their way of life.

Yvette Nolan (playwright) is an Algonquin playwright, dramaturg and director. Her plays include BLADE, Annie Mae’s Movement, from thine eyes, The Birds (a modern adaptation of Aristophanes’ comedy), Alaska and Prophecy (Canada 300). From 2003-2011, she served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. She is currently an Artistic Associate with Signal Theatre.

Nina Lee Aquino (director) is an award-winning director, dramaturge and playwright the current Artistic Director of Factory. Nina was the founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company as well as serving as Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre Company from 2009-2013. She is the editor of Canada’s first Asian-Canadian 2-volume drama anthology love + relasianships (Playwright Canada Press) and the co-editor of the award winning New Essays on Canadian Theatre Volume One: Asian Canadian Theatre (Playwrights Canada Press).

THE UNPLUGGING stars Allegra Fulton as Bern and Diana Belshaw as Elena. Fulton’s solo tour-de-force performance of Frida Kahlo in Frida K. has earned her international acclaim, garnering awards in New York City, Mexico City and across Canada. Recent credits include The List and The Carousel(Nightwood Theatre); Geometry in Venice (Segal Centre/Crow’s Theatre); Scorched (Tarragon Theatre); and The Comedy of Errors and The Odyssey (Stratford Shakespeare Festival).

Diana Belshaw is the current Head of Acting, and former Director of the Theatre Performance Program, at Humber College. With companies such as Theatre Passe Muraille, Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre and a long association with the Blyth Festival, she has performed and directed across the country and is particularly proud of her contribution to the development of new works as both director and actor, notably appearing as the Earl of Kent in Necessary Angel’s groundbreaking production of King Lear.

Factory and Native Earth Performing Arts are proud to introduce Umed Amin as Seamus in his first professional production. Amin studied acting at the University of Windsor, his credits include The Hollow, Three Sisters and Macbeth.

“These are hard times. We are all having to – become – something new.” – Bern, The Unplugging

FACTORY and NATIVE EARTH PERFORMING ARTS

Present

THE UNPLUGGING

Written by Yvette Nolan

Directed by Nina Lee Aquino

Starring Umed Amin, Diana Belshaw and Allegra Fulton

Set Designer: Camellia Koo • Lighting Designer: Michelle Ramsay

Sound Designer: Romeo Candido • Costume Designer: Joanna Yu

Dramaturge: Ric Knowles • Movement Director: Clare Preuss

Factory, 125 Bathurst Street (at Adelaide)

Run Dates: March 14 – April 5, 2015