Tableau D'hôte Theatre to Present World Premiere of Mishka Lavigne's SHORELINES

As theatres across Québec gradually prepare to safely welcome masked and distanced audiences back inside their venues, Tableau D'Hôte Theatre has announced that Mishka Lavigne's Shorelines is set to receive its world premiere this June in a rather unconventional outdoor location: Espace Ethel, a multi-level panoramic parking garage in the heart of Verdun.

After staging En Pointe, a highly-mediatized episodic series of outdoor bilingual short plays spontaneously created by the company in the summer of 2020, Shorelines will mark the company's second adventure in outdoor programming.

Shorelines, which will be presented as of this June, is to be publicly performed at Espace Ethel, a former parking garage in the heart of Verdun that is being reimagined as a new communal public space. This ambitious transformation of urban infrastructure is unparalleled in Montréal, and offers a jaw dropping panoramic view of the cityscape on its top levels. What can top that?

This new text penned by Governor General award-winning playwright Mishka Lavigne and directed by TDHT Artistic Director Mathieu Murphy-Perron hypothetically and daringly imagines how our social fabric will be tested by the climate crisis and the disruptions it will provoke. "In some ways, the pandemic has given us a view through the looking glass of how our lives will be upturned by the climate crisis, and to measure more concretely its impact on class disruptions, our collectivity, and the loss of our daily bearings and personal liberties," explains TDHT's Artistic Director, Mathieu Murphy-Perron.

Lavigne paints a bleak world in Shorelines, but also one filled with camaraderie and solidarity. For Tableau D'Hôte, there is no better time to artistically and socially dive head first into important questions about what type of society we wish to build together, at this particular juncture in time.

Shorelines features an all-star cast of some of Montréal's finest performers, including legendary stage and screen veteran Mireille Métellus (Héritage, Théâtre Jean Duceppe), Warona Setshwaelo (Small Mouth Sounds, Segal Centre for Performing Arts), Chadia Kikondjo (The Water Chronicles, Geordie Theatre), and Maureen Adelson (Counter Offence, Teesri Duniya Theatre).

"Tableau D'Hôte was charmed by our outdoor pandemic creation experience of 2020, and we are so pleased to be collaborating with Promenade Wellington (Société de développement commercial Wellington) to bring our first full-length production since 2019 to life in the great outdoors," continues Mathieu-Murphy Perron. "We will literally be building a theatre on the top level of a parking lot with a panoramic view of the Montréal skyline. Covid-19 has forced us all to adapt and pivot, and I am very proud of the dedication of our team to find ingenious ways to safely bring theatre to people in the most unlikely of settings."

For the second year in a row, TDHT is collaborating with a COVID-19 coordinator from the health sector to oversee all aspects of the production to ensure that the guidelines set out by public health are respected to assure the health and safety of artists and audiences alike.

Buy tickets online at Tableau D'Hôte Theatre (TDHT) on Monday, May 3rd 2021.

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