The Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC) has unveiled its 2022/23 season, with six revolutionary shows taking the stage in Ottawa’s Hintonburg neighbourhood. With Interim Artistic Director Sarah Kitz at the helm, the new season promises to bring audiences joy, change, and justice, as well as foster a sense of community.

True to GCTC’s mandate of fostering, producing, and promoting “theatre that provokes examination of Canadian life and our place in the world,” the season will feature diverse stories and voices with a uniting theme: what happens behind the scenes at the revolution. As Kitz notes in the season brochure, “what ties them together is a desire to push for a better world, and the imperative to care for one another.”

“We have critical roles to play in cultural conversations where art and politics intersect… What we need now are visions of how the world can be organized differently and better.”

In an effort to reduce financial barriers and offer patrons flexibility, GCTC will be using a new “pick-your-price” model for the entire 2022/23 season. Individual tickets and 4-ticket packs are available for purchase online, over-the-phone, or by email at GCTC’s box office.

You can find out more about the exciting offerings in GCTC’s upcoming season on their website – www.gctc.ca.

The Chemical Valley Project

by Julia Howman and Kevin Matthew Wong

September 20 – October 2, 2022

When artist Kevin Matthew Wong first visits Aamjiwnaang First Nation (Sarnia, ON) to learn more about one of the most polluted regions in Canada, he begins a relationship with Indigenous Water Protectors, Land Defenders and siblings Vanessa Gray and Beze Gray. Vanessa and Beze lead Kevin through an uncovering of Canadian colonization and corporate greed, and Kevin grapples with his own feelings about his heritage and relationship to Canada.

This documentary-play co-created by Wong and Julia Howman blends multi-media storytelling, a charming solo performance, and small scale spectacle to explore reconciliation and environmentalism in Canada.

Forever Young: A Ghetto Story (World Premiere)

by Darrah Teitel

Directed by Sarah Kitz

November 8 – 20, 2022

In a Jewish ghetto at the height of the Second World War, a group of youths plot what will become known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, while coming of age. This sharp comedy from Darrah Teitel (Behaviour, The Apology) is a story of youth, revolution, and betrayal in Poland, 1943 as young socialists rise to face their oppressors and change the world.

As You Like It: A Radical Retelling

A Crow’s Theatre production

by Cliff Cardinal

January 17 – 29, 2023

From Cliff Cardinal, creator of Huff, Stitch, and CBC Special, comes a new realization of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Known for his cutting humour, Cardinal’s take on the Bard’s classic brings renewed energy to this twisting comedy about the trials of love and mistaken identity in the lush Forest of Arden. Cardinal’s unpredictability is in full force in this new adaptation. You’ve never seen Shakespeare like this.

The Unplugging

by Yvette Nolan

Directed by Katey Wattam

February 28 – March 12, 2023

In a post apocalyptic future, two women venture into a frozen world after being exiled from their village. Relying on one another, they revive their Indigenous knowledge and traditions to survive the harsh winters and create a new community between the two of them. Everything’s going well until a man shows up.

The First Stone

A GCTC co-production with New Harlem and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

Directed by Yvette Nolan

Can what is torn apart by war be put back together? From the award-winning writer of Gas Girls and Sound of the Beast, The First Stone is an epic-yet-intimate examination of violence and forgiveness. During the Ugandan Civil War, two children are captured into an army, while their father fights on the other side. Their mother will do anything to get them back. The First Stone considers intergenerational clashes and obligations, competing revolutions, and the love required to escape cycles of violence.

12

Created and directed by Kristina Watt Villegas

Performed and co-created by the 100 Watt Youth Ensemble

With a blend of hope, outrage, and humour, 12 gives voice to youth with regards to the climate crisis and a future that they’ve inherited. The play is built from conversations with 11 teens, interviews they had with citizens of Ottawa, transcripts from the international COP meetings (Council of the Parties), words of environmental leaders such as Greta Thunberg, Xuihtezcatl Martinez, and Howey Ou, as well as the Australian high school students who were told by their PM to be “less activist.”

By Jessica Watson for www.intermissionmagazine.ca.