Indigenous Summer Play Readings 2022
June 2022
Catch two new plays this summer out in the Yukon sun! Every year, Gwaandak Theatre is proud to present two scripts by Indigenous playwrights never before presented or performed in the Yukon! The 2022 edition of ISPR is co-presented by The Guild Hall & Queer Yukon.
By Yvette Nolan and the Sum Theatre Ensemble
The Young Ones
Directed by Colin Wolf
The Young Ones is a play about young people leading the way. This Theatre for Young Audiences piece explores hope in the face of climate change from the perspective of the young ones.
My Sister’s Rage
By Yolanda Bonnell
Directed by Kelly Vittrekwa
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.
I wrote this piece almost as a love letter to the complex and hilarious and wonderful kwe in my family. And for their kids - some of whom I don’t know well. I wanted to show a snapshot of existence - Indigenous existence. In its beautiful simplicity but with those intricate layers underneath - much like the land. I want my communities to find themselves in this story and feel heard and seen. I keep saying that representation is harm reduction - or itcan be. My hope is, if someone sees their story in mine, maybe they’ll feel less alone. The more we see ourselves and our stories reflected - especially community specific stories, the more we can see our place in the world. That there is always a place for us. And for anyone who has dealt with grief - I hope there is healing in this for you. Miigwetch
Whitehorse - June 16th-18th
‘Round Back at The Guild Hall
Catch us on the radio for National Indigenous Peoples Day!
CFYT 106.9 FM - June 21st
Dawson - June 21st-23rd
Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre
Tombstone Territorial Campground, Amphitheatre & Picnic Shelter
Tombstone - June 24th
Teslin - June 26th-27th (Cancelled due to flooding)
Teslin Tlingit Heritage Centre
Digital via Zoom - June 27th
CREDITS
Featuring Tyra Ashauntie, Rosalind Crump, Roreigh Eftoda, Isabelle James-Walker, Kayleigh Lafontaine, Kelly Vittrekwa, Trinity Vittrekwa, Miki Wolf
Playwright | Yvette Nolan and the Sum Theatre Ensemble
Playwright | Yolanda Bonnell
Directors | Colin Wolf & Kelly Vittrekwa
Stage Manager | Simone Kitchen
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS
Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, director and dramaturg. Her works include the plays Annie Mae’s Movement and The Unplugging, the dance-opera Bearing, the libretto Shawnadithit, the short play-for-film Katharsis. She was one of the ten writers on Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show. She cocreated, with Joel Bernbaum and Lancelot Knight, the verbatim play Reasonable Doubt, about relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan. Her work with Sum Theatre includes Thicker Than Water, Little Badger and the Fire Spirit, Queen Seraphina and the Land of Vertebraat, The Young Ones and Last Sunday. From 2003-2011, she served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts. Her book, Medicine Shows, about Indigenous performance in Canada was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015. She is the Company Dramaturg for Sum Theatre in Saskatoon, and currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy.
Joel Bernbaum is an actor, director, playwright, journalist and the founding artistic director of Sum Theatre. Born and raised in Saskatoon, Joel is the only child of a Buddhist Mother and Jewish Father. He is a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts and Carleton University, where he did his Master’s Thesis on Verbatim Theatre’s Relationship to Journalism. With Sum Theatre Joel created Saskatchewan’s first free professional live Theatre in the Park. To date, over 50,000 people have participated in Sum Theatre’s work. Joel’s produced plays include Operation Big Rock, My Rabbi (with Kayvon Khoshkam), Home Is a Beautiful Word and Reasonable Doubt (with Yvette Nolan and Lancelot Knight) and Being Here: The Refugee Project. Joel is currently an interdisciplinary PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan, investigating the potential of theatre to strengthen cities. He is grateful to be the first Urjo Kareda Resident from Saskatchewan and the first Trudeau Foundation Scholar from the U of S. Joel lives in Saskatoon with his 6-year old son, Judah.
Sum Theatre was born when Saskatoon theatre artists Joel Bernbaum and Kayvon Khoshkam were invited to present a staged reading of their play My Rabbi at the Belfry Theatre’s SPARK Festival in 2011. They were told they needed a company name, so they thought of one. The Sum is greater than its parts. Joel brought the name home to Saskatchewan and incorporated Sum Theatre in 2012. Recognizing that there was not a lot of professional theatre being made for people who did not already go to the theatre, Joel applied for a SK Arts (formerly Saskatchewan Arts Board) Independent Artists Grant to create what would become the first Theatre in the Park. When the application was successful, Joel realised he needed a collaborator and invited Heather Morrison to be Sum’s founding Artistic Producer. Heather and Joel led the company together from 2013 - 2019. From 2016 to 2018, thanks to the support of a Creative Saskatchewan Business Capacity Grant, Charlie Peters joined the leadership team as Sum’s first Artistic Associate. In 2019, Heather lead the company for a year with the assistance of Associate Artistic Director Judy Wensel and Mentor Yvette Nolan, while Joel took an educational leave. In 2020, Heather left Sum to pursue other opportunities. In 2020, thanks to the support of another Creative Saskatchewan Business Capacity Grant, the leadership structure of Sum Theatre began to change. Three Artistic Associates - Mackenzie Dawson, Krystle Pederson and Judith Schulz - one Company Dramaturge -Yvette Nolan - and a Producer - Laura Negraeff - joined the team. They began working in circle with a collective leadership and decision making process. It is the hope that this new structure will share power, promote diversity and insure succession planning. Joel has given notice he will be transitioning away from the company by 2024.
Yolanda Bonnell (She/They) is a Bi/Queer 2 Spirit Anishinaabe-Ojibwe, South Asian mixed storyteller and multidisciplinary creator/educator. Originally from Fort William First Nation in Thunder Bay, Ontario (Superior Robinson Treaty territory), her arts practice is now based in Tkarón:to. She is Co-artistic leader of manidoons collective, that she runs with Michif (Métis) artist, Cole Alvis. In February 2020, Yolanda’s four-time Dora nominated solo show bug was remounted at Theatre Passe Muraille while the published book was shortlisted for a Governor General Literary Award. Yolanda was the Indigenous artist recipient of the Jayu Arts for Human Rights Award for her work and won the PGC Tom Hendry Drama Award for her play, My Sister’s Rage. Yolanda has taught at schools like York University and Sheridan College and proudly bases her practice in land-based creation, drawing on energy and inspiration from the earth and her ancestors.
Thank you to our Co-Presenters, Queer Yukon and The Guild Hall, to the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson, and thank you to the Teslin Tlingit Council for inviting us to Teslin. Special thanks to Claire Ness, James Croken, Anna Lund, Matthew Sarty, Asha Bittenbender & The Gwaandak Theatre Staff.
Thank you to our sponsors: The Canada Council for the Arts, The Yukon Government, The City of Whitehorse, Lotteries Yukon.