I’m am thrilled to begin work on bringing Étienne Lepage’s Govenor General Award nominated (2015) theatre for young audiences to the English language. A special thank you to The Presentation House Theatre and Canada Council for the Arts for supporting this translation.
“I don’t believe that theatre for young audiences should set an example. I believe in children’s intelligence, and their ability to develop deep understanding when faced with a difficult issue.” Étienne Lepage, Playwright”
HISTOIRES POUR FAIRE DES CAUCHEMARS
by Étienne Lepage
10 and up
The provocative Québec playwright whose productions have elicited intense reaction, Étienne Lepage challenges a younger audience. Eight stories, structures like a novel chapters, spring from the fertile imaginations of “two little good-for-nothings” who refuse to go to bed. Making up creepy, fun-filled stories, they spook each other and explore what’s real and what’s not with their imaginations. Rising above the adult absurdities, their mischievous games reflect life’s great truths which one must learn to embrace and overcome no matter what your age.
About the playwright:
Étienne Lepage is playwright, scriptwriter, translator and transdisciplinary creator. Based in Montreal, his work has been seen across North America and Europe. Among his many creations, are Rouge Gueule, L’Enclos de l’éléphant, Ainsi parlait. His work has twice been a finalist for The Governor General Award French Language Theatre.
About Francophone Canadian Theatre
Born from a special set of circumstances, the francophone Canadian artists developed of a truly singular approach to text that exists in no other performing arts community that I am aware of. Developed in part to allow Quebecois artists to write for International French Audiences without sacrificing their own identity and in part inspired by European practices, “the Langue D’Auteur” is a textual place where there are no rules. The poetic, literary, abstract and expressionistic live side by side with gritty realism, heightened theatrical practice and the mundane becomes the fantastical. Textually ancient words, made up words, verse, prose, Joual (everyday spoken Quebecois), and other francophone dialects all participate on the page. The Canadian Francophone textual work is a place where individual expression and metaphor have the same import as narrative and the “well made play”.