Mike Payette Artistic Director of Tarragon Theatre and Managing Director Andrea Vagianos are excited to announce the World Premiere of My Sister’s Rage. The play, written and directed by Yolanda Bonnell, runs in the Extraspace from October 11 - November 6 (opening October 19).

My Sister’s Rage is a Tarragon presentation, in association with Studio 180 Theatre and TO Live.

In this new work from Anishinaabe-Ojibwe & South Asian playwright Yolanda Bonnell, we drop in on the lives of a family of women and 2 spirit living on after a great loss, exploring intergenerational connection, trauma, shame, assimilation and the strength of the characters’ ma'iingan kwe heritage. My Sister’s Rage tells the story of ancestral pain, strength and connection, and how, across time, an incident from the not-so-distant past is woven into the continued identity of an entire community.

From the critically acclaimed playwright behind the Dora Mavor Moore Award-nominated bug, Yolanda Bonnell’s My Sister’s Rage is a play about the nuances of holding trauma and joy simultaneously, and how laughter is medicine.

"More than ever, our communities are seeking the capacity to heal, to re-build after great loss and to find ways to honour celebration and light. Yolanda – through the shaping of this complex family within My Sister’s Rage – has created a rich and wholly relatable journey of one community grappling to rekindle their strength through laughter, movement, remembrance and, above all, the ancestral world that remains a guiding force," notes Artistic Director Mike Payette. He continues, "It has been a gift to witness Yolanda’s passion and devotion to community in ways that will undoubtedly resonate with audiences near and far, today and tomorrow."

My Sister’s Rage is presented by Tarragon Theatre, in association with Studio 180 Theatre and TO Live, written and directed by Yolanda Bonnell (Tarragon debut, Manidoons Collective/Theatre Passe Muraille/Native Earth Performing Arts’s bug) and features Shandra Spears Bombay (Tarragon debut, Magnus Theatre’s The Rez Sisters and The Berlin Blues, as playwright - If This is the End), Samantha Brown (Tarragon debut, Native Earth’s Ipperwash, Soulpepper’s August: Osage County and Kamloopa, Arc Theatre’s Oil), Theresa Cutknife (Tarragon debut, Aluna Theatre’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Centre for Indigenous Theatre’s Father Penible, Buddies in Bad Times’ Tipi Confessions), Nicole Joy-Fraser (Tarragon’s Come Home – The Legend of Daddy Hall, Nightwood’s The Penelopiad, Shaw Festival’s This is how we got here), Ange Loft (Tarragon debut, Centaur Theatre’s Talking Treaties: Tiotià:ke, Spiderwoman Theatre’s Material Witness, Buddies in Bad Times/Rhubarb Festival’s Hoofs), Monique Mojica (Tarragon debut, NAC’s The Unnatural and Accidental Women, King Lear, I Lost my Talk, Kaha:wii Dance Theatre’s Re-Quickening), Pesch Nepoose (Tarragon debut, Theatre by the Bay’s Mno Bimaadziwin, Centre for Indigenous Theatre’s Bannock Republic, Aki Studio and NEPA’s Father Penible) and Ty Sloane (Tarragon debut, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's Youth/Elder's Project, Crave TV’s "1 Queen 5 Queers"). 

Featuring set design from Rebecca Vandevelde (Tarragon debut, lighting design - b current and Pandemic Theatre’s Take d Milk, Nah?, Theatre Centre’s Here are the Fragments), costume design from Julia Hodgson-Surich (As Head of Wardrobe: Black Theatre Workshop & Tarragon Theatre’s Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers, Tarragon’s Three Women of Swatow), lighting design from Echo Zhou (Tarragon’s Mr.Shi and His Lover, Manidoons Collective’s White Girls in Moccasins, Theatre Passe Muraille’s The Year of the Cello), sound design from Miquelon Rodriguez (Tarragon’s Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes and Girls Like That, Shaw Festival’s Gem of the Ocean, Factory Theatre’s acts of faith). With cultural consultation by Jesse Wabegijig (as actor - Centre for Ingigenous Theatre/Paprika Festival’s S.O.S Saving our Sovereignty), associate direction and movement facilitation by Aria Evans (Stratford Festival’s Every Little Nookie, Soulpepper’s Queen Goneril, Native Earth and Soulpepper’s Kamloopa) and dramaturgy by Lindsay Lachance (Gwaandak Theatre’s The Crows, RMT’s Women of the Fur Trade).

My Sister’s Rage runs in the Extraspace Oct 11 - Nov 6, 2022. My Sister’s Rage will also be available digitally as part of Tarragon Theatre’s Chez Vous subscription, offering fully realized recordings of the performances in the 2022/23 season from Nov 1 - Nov 27, 2022.

Performances of My Sister’s Rage will require proof of vaccination and disposable surgical or N95/KN95 masks. 

My Sister’s Rage (World Premiere)

Written & Directed by Yolanda Bonnell

October 11 - November 6, 2022 (opening October 19)

Extraspace

When their Matriarch ends up in a coma, a ma’iingan-wolf clan family gathers together to work through their collective grief and begin to heal from an incident in the past. While the Aunties camp out in the hospital room, the younger cousins spend their time at the Grandmother’s house by the backyard firepit; all while being circled by a cackling crow jokester.

As the veil between the ancestral plane and the earthly realm gets thinner, tensions and emotions are high and vulnerabilities are exposed, revealing the true strength and resilience of the ma’iingan kwe.

Yolanda Bonnell’s My Sister’s Rage is a story about the nuances of holding trauma and joy at the same time and how laughter is medicine.

Showtimes are Tuesday - Saturday at 8pm with matinees on Wednesdays, select Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30pm.

Single Tickets range from $15 - $55 and can be purchased online at www.tarragontheatre.com, or by phone at 416-531-1827. Discounts are available for students, groups, arts workers, Front Line Workers, and the Underemployed. Contact the box office for more information. Single tickets for My Sister’s Rage are on sale now.

Tarragon offers the most flexible subscription packages in the city with significant discounts on subscription pricing. Plus, allowing patrons to choose their productions, change their dates free of charge. Visit the website or call Patron Services today for more information.

Rush tickets are sold for $20, online via tickets.tarragontheatre.com at 12pm on the day of the performance. Rush tickets are subject to availability.