Inside the 2024 undercurrents festival
iPhoto caption: Logo courtesy of Ottawa Fringe
Ottawa Fringe has unveiled the lineup for the 2024 undercurrents festival, presented bilingually in French and English.
Whether you’re looking for work by up-and-coming local playwrights, interested in how AI can be integrated into theatre-making, or wanting to walk the halls of a high school at night, undercurrents offers much to discover. The festival includes works from Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and Wakefield.
“This year we’re asking you to jump in and experience different styles of theatre and space — we’re asking you to immerse yourself in theatre,” said executive director Alain Richer in a press release.
Here is the lineup for the 2024 undercurrents festival:
Mainstage Productions
Blood Offering
by Vishesh Abeyratne
In the wake of yet another mass shooting in the United States, the death of Kayla Gordon leaves an American town reeling.
I Don’t Even Miss You
by Elena Belyea
In Tiny Bear Jaws’ dystopian pop “solo” show, a non-binary computer programmer wakes one morning to discover they’re alone. A bold, multidisciplinary exploration of AI, grief, love, and legacy, I Don’t Even Miss You asks how gender, identity, and family can exist with no one to perceive them.
Kimiko
by Kaylie Hatashita
A poetic circus show that tells a tale of self-discovery and reconciling generational trauma.
Le Concierge
by Daniele Bartolini and Vincent Leblanc-Beaudoin
Playing the entire first week of the festival at De La Salle Public High School, the Toronto immersive hit Le Concierge follows the astonishing nightly journey of a janitor as he goes from classroom to classroom and through the hidden corners of a school.
Terminally Ill
by Melissa Yi
The world premiere of a complex yet funny play inspired by Yi’s medical mystery novel of the same name, praised as “entertaining and insightful” by Publishers Weekly.
Through My Lens
by Amy Amantea
A new work from Vancouver’s Theatre Replacement, Through My Lens combines conversation, hospitality, and portraiture. Amantea is an artist with a lived experience of blindness; she’s also a photographer with a practice that involves walking the city at twilight looking for interesting light patterns and capturing them with her camera.
Malunderstood
by Kenny Streule
The hit autobiographical comedy comes to Ottawa in a French translation commissioned by undercurrents. Immerse yourself in a collection of memories that explain how Streule was raised by a wild beaver. Using comedy, puppetry, and movement, he examines his relationship with his Swiss German grandmother.
Discovery Series
KEEP MARS RED
by Elizabeth Logue and Brian Sanderson
Sunà is intent on communicating with Mars in order to warn it of the doom impending if earthlings land there — especially ones like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson.
L’hippocampe
by Marie-Ève Fontaine and Judith Poitras
Why do we dream? Two dream-researchers will tackle that question through a panoply of tests using theatre, drawing, mechanical art, and more. This immersive French piece is perfect for families with children ages four and up.
Chasse au Trésor
by Chançard Lemvo and Éric Beevis
A French play about a young man of Congolese descent newly arrived in Canada. His questioning of his personal identity spills over into his family relationships, love life, and the reality of being a young Black man in North America.
undercurrents festival runs from February 7 to 17. More information is available here.
Liam Donovan
Liam is Intermission’s senior editor. He lives in Toronto. His Substack newsletter is available at loamdonovan.substack.com.
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