ALTERNATIVES Comes to Centaur Theatre

Centaur Theatre will present the first show of its 2023-24 Season, Drew Hayden Taylor's alterNatives, a collaboration with Montreal-based Indigenous theatre company Menuentakuan Productions. In alterNatives, Taylor brings his trademark wit and cultural insight to this wry look at contemporary social dynamics. Directed by Xavier Huard and featuring an all star cast of Charles Bender, Natalie Tannous, Etienne Thibeault, Lesly Velázquez, Nadia Verrucci and Xavier Watso, alterNatives will be presented at Centaur Theatre, Oct. 17 to Nov. 5, 2023. 

 

Hilarious and thought-provoking in equal measure, this comedy of manners shines a light on the cultural divides that still exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada. The play focuses on the relationship between Angel, a young Anishinaabe science-fiction writer, and his partner Colleen, a university professor who studies Indigenous literature despite not being Indigenous herself. Colleen invites two of her friends – Dale and Michelle, a couple of white liberal vegans – to sit down and share a meal with two of Angel's friends, a pair of radical anti-colonial activists who have dubbed themselves “alterNative warriors.” This results in everyone's biases being on the table leading to a rip-roaring comedic experience.

This production is representative of Centaur's commitment to giving voice to Indigenous theatre-makers and collaborating with its colleagues in the Francophone theatre world.

Menuentakuan Productions presented a French-language version of alterNatives called alterIndiens at Théâtre Denise Pelletier in 2021; many of the talented bilingual cast members, (Charles Bender, Etienne Thibeault, and Lesly Velázquez) are returning for the English-language version of this production at Centaur. They will be joined by Nadia Verrucci, last seen at Centaur in At the Beginning of Time (2022), Natalie Tannous, last seen at Centaur in The Baklawa Recipe (2018), as well as TikTok star Xavier Watso. The production is directed by esteemed Québecois artist Xavier Huard, co-founder of Menuentakuan Productions, which seeks to be a meeting place between Canada's First Nations culture and the other cultures that enrich the Canadian and Québecois identity. 


Playwright Drew Hayden Taylor is one of the most celebrated and well-known Indigenous playwrights in Canada, as well as a noted essayist, novelist, columnist, filmmaker, and TV host. He is Anishinaabe (Ojibway) from Curve Lake First Nation in Ontario. His CBC documentary The Pretendians won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Political/Social Documentary in 2022, and his popular APTN series Going Native has recently been renewed for a third season. His play Someday was performed in 1994 as part of Centaur's 26th Season.

 

Director Xavier Huard is a 2013 graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada. Soon after completing his degree, he began directing theatrical projects in remote Aboriginal communities and in Haiti. In February 2015, along with Marco Collin and Charles Bender, he co-founded Menuentakuan Productions. On stage, he worked with Théâtre du Nouveau Monde in 2014 and 2015 in productions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Les Trois-Mousquetaires. In 2017 and 2018, he appeared at Salle Fred-Barry in Antigone au printemps and Là où le sang se mêle.

 

Charles Bender is a Huron-Wendat actor, director, translator, and the Co-Artistic Director of Menuentakuan. He is a frequent presence on APTN as both actor and host. He was recently host of the live broadcast of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation event in Ottawa on this same channel. Bender was last seen on-stage at Centaur in François Archambault's You Will Remember Me (season 48).

 

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