Coming up March 20th and 21st 2021, join us for the staged reading of Behaviour, produced by Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal and presented by the Segal Centre For Performing Arts!
An exploration of gender, power, labour and abuse, Behaviour, written by Darrah Teitel and directed by Emma Tibaldo, will be read on-site at the Segal Centre on March 20-21, and live-streamed to the public.
Dates
Saturday, March 20, 2021 at 5 PM.
Re-streamed at 8 PM.
Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 4 PM.
Tickets
All tickets are Pay What You Can.
A donation will be made to the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal and Chez Doris matching the amount collected via ticket sales.
“One of the smartest plays to respond to the #MeToo movement”
– Kelly Nestruck (The Globe and Mail)
“One of the most important, powerful, traumatizing, and simply essential plays happening right now.”
– Ryan Pepper (Capital Critics Circle)
“Behaviour unsettles and forces us to question ourselves and our compliance with existing structures.”
– Patrick Langston (ArtsFile)
Behaviour is the story of Mara, a woman who seems to be living her dream: she has a career in politics where she is making a difference, and she’s in love with an artist who challenges norms. But what lurks underneath is devastating. With humour, precision, and unrelenting honesty, Behaviour probes at what we accept as normal. The play challenges our acceptance of existing structures, exploring the interplay between power and abuse. Behaviour reflects the world as we experience it, where speaking out against sexual abuse is the abnormal act.
This play comes at a time when dismantling gender and labour hierarchies has never been more important. Teitel has set her play on the Hill, where workers are particularly vulnerable to power imbalances. Behaviour shouts out against the normalized silence against abuse, to the point that Teitel says, “what is abnormal is speaking out against it.” This reading, then, is an attempt to say out loud what usually remains unspoken.
The play premiered at the Great Canadian Theatre Company, co-produced with SpiderWebShow. The script was developed in collaboration with Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal through a variety of programs, including the Gros Morne Playwrights’ Residency.
About the Playwright
Darrah Teitel is a Canadian socialist and a playwright, currently living in Berkeley California as the 2020 Peleh International Artist in Residence. Her most recent credits include The Omnibus Bill (Counterpoint Players, May 2019) Behaviour (GCTC, 2019) Corpus (Teesri Duniya 2014, Counterpoint 2014) The Apology (Alberta Theatre Projects 2013, Next Stage Festival 2011) Marla’s Party (SummerWorks 2008) the CBC radio drama Palliative (2007) She Said Destroy (National Theatre School of Canada, 2007). Darrah was the GCTC’s Playwright in Residence in 2015 and 2017, during which her two most recent plays were written. Her journalism, fiction and poetry have appeared in various periodicals and journals throughout the country. Darrah is the winner of several awards, including the 2011 Canadian Jewish Playwrighting Award, and the 2007 Canadian Peace Play Prize. Her plays have received nominations for Dora, Betty Mitchell, Rideau and META Prizes for Outstanding New Plays. Darrah also works for Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights and is a founding member of the Courage Coalition and a proud member of Independent Jewish Voices.
About the Director & Dramaturg
Emma Tibaldo became Artistic and Executive Director of Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal in early 2008. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy.
In addition to collaborating dramaturgically on plays through her work at PWM, she has directed new Canadian plays across the country such as Winter’s Daughter by Jesse Stong, SCUM: A Manifesto by S.E. Grummett and Caitlin Zacharias, Okinum by Emilie Monnet (co-director), Miss Katelyn’s Grade Threes Prepare for the Inevitable by Elena Belyea, The Baklawa Recipe by Pascale Rafie, Refuge by Mary Vingoe, Falling Trees by Megan Coles, Model Wanted by Step Taylor. In 2005, she co-founded Talisman Theatre for whom she has directed award-winning production That Woman by Daniel Danis, Down Dangerous Passes Road by Michel Marc Bouchard, and The Medea Effect by Suzie Bastien. She has just completed work on Skin, a new performance piece with the interdisciplinary company The Bakery, livestreamed during the Centaur’s Wildside Festival in January 2021.
Next she will be co-directing a radio play for Imago theatre, Ringtone, by Audrey Dwyer.
She has been a guest artist at the National Theatre School and Concordia University. Emma is a graduate of Concordia University’s Theatre Department and the National Theatre School of Canada’s Directing Program.
She feeds her inner (and outer) punk rocker by playing in the family band The Tibaldos and The Dépanneurds.
Cast & Crew
Amelia Sargisson
Mara
Victor Trelles
Evan
Erin Shields
Jordan
Felicia Shulman
Lydia | iTrance | Police
Emily Soussana
Production Designer
Luciana Burcheri
Stage Manager
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Digital Dramaturg Collective