Preconceptions Of Neurodivergency Are Shattered In THE SHADOW WHOSE PREY THE HUNTER BECOMES At Canadian Stage

In the new year, Canadian Stage invites audiences to experience the internationally acclaimed work of Australia's Back to Back Theatre – 2022 winners of the Ibsen Award - presenting THE SHADOW WHOSE PREY THE HUNTER BECOMES on stage at the Berkeley Street Theatre January 18th – 28th. (Media night: January 18)

Weaving a narrative through human rights, sexual politics, and the rise of artificial intelligence, THE SHADOW WHOSE PREY THE HUNTER BECOMES is a sly theatrical revelation reminding us that none of us are self-sufficient and all of us are responsible for the future. At the center of this exploration lies a fundamental question: If artificial intelligence took over the world, would human beings all end up living with an intellectual disability?

Written and performed by neuro-divergent actors interrogating the parameters of traditional theater and their own perceived disabilities, the three performers from Back to Back Theatre challenge contemporary presumptions about artificial intelligence and the human mind. 

“Back to Back Theatre are one of the most innovative and vital independent theatre companies on the world stage today,” comments Canadian Stage Artistic Director Brendan Healy.  “THE SHADOW WHOSE PREY THE HUNTER BECOMES is a very funny, smart, surprising, and unique piece of theatre that advances an incredibly compelling exploration of cognition and the underlying absurdity of the accepted hierarchies of cognition. The play is created by a company of neurodivergent artists with a non-interventionist approach that results in work that isn't a neurotypical take on the neurodivergent experience, but an authentic expression of it.  We are thrilled to be able to share their work with our audiences.”

Based in the Victorian regional centre of Geelong, Australia, Back to Back Theatre – in operation for 30 years - is widely recognised as a company of international significance. The company is driven by an ensemble of actors who are perceived to have intellectual disabilities and pursues a model of equality that fully embraces neurodiversity.
 
From 2009 to 2022 the company has undertaken 72 national and 89 international seasons of its work including presentations and screenings at the world's pre-eminent contemporary arts festivals and venues such as the Edinburgh International Festival, London's V&A Museum and the Barbican, Vienna Festival, Holland Festival and Theater der Welt, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, The Public Theater in New York, Festival Tokyo, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in Hong Kong, and Buenos Aires International Festival. 
 
Back to Back Theatre has received 21 national and international awards including the prestigious International Ibsen Award, a Helpmann Award for Best Australian Work, an Edinburgh International Festival Herald Angel Critics' Award, two Age Critics' Awards, a New York Bessie, and the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Group Award for our long-standing contribution to the development of Australian theatre. In 2015, Artistic Director Bruce Gladwin received the Australia Council for the Arts' Inaugural Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre. The ensemble was awarded the ‘Best Ensemble' in the 2019 Green Room Awards.
 
Tickets for THE SHADOW WHOSE PREY THE HUNTER BECOMES range from $29-$99. Tickets are now available at canadianstage.com. This production runs from January 18th – 28th, 2024, with performances at 8:00pm Tuesday – Saturday, and 2:00pm matinees on Saturday and Sundays.
 
For more information and tickets visit www.canadianstage.com.

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