2018 Spark Festival

Show Info

March 8 – 10, 2018
True Crime
Created by Torquil Campbell & Chris Abraham in collaboration with Julian Brown
Performed by Torquil Campbell (lead singer of Stars), live music by Julian Brown
Crow’s Theatre presents The Castleton Massive Production, Toronto

Clark Rockefeller is a real-life conman of the highest order, now serving a near-life sentence in a California State prison, and iconic Canadian ranter and rocker Torquil Campbell wants to try him on for size. What does it mean for an excellent fabulator to embody an excellent fabulator? And in the end, does an intricate con differ that much from a successful work of art? Torquil’s dogged investigation and impersonation challenges us to find the truth in true crime and confronts our cultural addiction to a good story. Entirely scripted or absolutely extemporaneous, True Crime is a mind-twisting encounter with an artist obsessed with how we all fake it, one way or another.

“What makes this show so very smart and entertaining is the way Campbell draws you into a web of stories and constantly keeps you guessing about what you can and can’t believe. Art imitates life imitates true crime.” Toronto Star

March 13 – 17, 2018
Who Killed Spalding Gray?
Written & Performed by Daniel MacIvor
Directed by Daniel Brooks
reWork Productions, Toronto

On the weekend of January 11, 2004, celebrated American monologist Spalding Gray ended his life by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry in New York. That same weekend, on the other side of the country, Daniel MacIvor was spending three days in California in a series of sessions with a man who had offered to save MacIvor’s life. Linking these two real stories is a wholly original fiction about truth, lies and the four most important things in life.

Candid and darkly funny, Who Killed Spalding Gray? reunites Daniel MacIvor, one of Canada’s foremost playwrights, with longtime collaborator, director Daniel Brooks.

★★★½ “(A) moving show… cathartic, resonant” The Globe and Mail

“Trying to follow this path of truth, untruth and whatever lies between, the mind after a while reels, kind of like when you start imagining multiple universes. Few could package it all into an accessible and pleasing performance, one which even includes a goofy little solo dance, but MacIvor does. And that you can take as gospel.” Ottawa Citizen

“…after 80 minutes that blend mythology, dreamlike images, the movie Big Fish, and MacIvor’s own propensity for looking for signs from the universe and “significance where (he) can find it,” there’s a moment of breakthrough and clarity, which is well earned and a beautiful (literal) breath of fresh air.” Toronto Star

March 13 – 17, 2018
Mouthpiece
Created and Performed by Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken
Quote Unquote Collective / Why Not Theatre, Toronto

Mouthpiece follows one woman, for one day, as she tries to find her voice. Interweaving a cappella harmony, dissonance, text and physicality, two performers express the inner conflict that exists within a modern woman’s head: the push and the pull, the past and the present, the progress and the regression.

“One of the most incisive commentaries on contemporary womanhood I’ve ever heard. This show lays bare in an emotionally authentic, creative, often funny, self-reflective and guileless way what it’s like to be a woman in our society.” My Entertainment World

“★★★★…If the Olympics had an event for synchronized swimming minus the pool, Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken would be contenders for a gold medal.” The Globe and Mail

★★★★★ 5 STARS “Truly astounding stuff” The Stage

★★★★★ 5 STARS “An extraordinarily well considered, deeply thought insight into the essence of femaleness. Ambitious and unique, it’s an education of the self.” Edinburgh Festival Magazine

★★★★★ 5 STARS “one of the most informed, empathetic, complex articulations of female selfhood and female voices that I have ever seen” Broadway Baby

March 20 – 24, 2018
Tomorrow’s Child
Adapted from Ray Bradbury’s short story by Eric Rose, Matthew Waddell and David van Belle
Ghost River Theatre, Calgary

Blending sound art, theatre, and science fiction, Tomorrow’s Child invites audiences into the realm of internal spectacle. This is a one-of-kind sensory experience where audience members will be blindfolded and individually guided into a swivel seat, the story unfolding in the sonic landscape that surrounds them.

Brand new parents, Polly and Peter, in the imagined retro-future of 1988, confront the reality that their child has been born into another dimension. Will they accept the interstellar divide between parent and child? Or is there another spacetime solution?

“…your ears receive the audio equivalent of a five star dinner.” Calgary Herald

“Ghost River has adapted Bradbury’s story with cutting edge sound technology and the experience is fascinating…. It makes for an engaging story told in an innovative fashion. Tomorrow’s Child is a different take on storytelling. It is immersive, innovative theatre and I can’t wait for the other installments in the 6-sense series.” Theatre Blogger Jenna Shummoogum

“…an intriguing immersive experience combined with compelling storytelling.” CBC Radio

“I think I had an out of body experience. Spin more. More GRT.” Audience Member

Based on the short story “Tomorrow Child” by Ray Bradbury, originally published as “The Shape of Things” © 1947; renewed 1975 by Ray Bradbury. Performed by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.

March 20 – 24, 2018
Café Daughter
Performed by Tiffany Ayalik
Written by Kenneth T. Williams
Directed by Lisa C. Ravensbergen
Workshop West Playwrights Theatre in association with Alberta Aboriginal Performing Arts, Edmonton

Yvette Wong is a girl of mixed heritage growing up in Saskatchewan in the 1950s. Her father is Chinese and he runs a small town café. Her mother is Cree. When Yvette is ten her mother extracts a promise from her. She must never tell anyone she is Cree. Yvette holds this secret close to her heart along with a dream, until the moment she can no longer hide her heritage from herself. Based on the true story of Senator Lillian Eva Quan Dyck, Café Daughter is the powerful, funny and touching tale of one woman’s journey to reclaim her heritage.

“Ayalik, of Inuit ancestry, is heir to a tradition of storytelling. She is a remarkable performer who creates a cast of indelible characters.” Edmonton Sun

“…the resourceful Ayalik populates it with a dozen distinctive characters, all filtered through the broadening perspective of a kid growing up. Loss of childhood innocence is a process the actor charts with considerable skill, thought, and humour in Lisa C. Ravensbergen’s production.” Edmonton Journal

March 12, 2018
Why We Are Here!
Created by Brian Quirt and Martin Julien
Nightswimming, Toronto

Why We Are Here! is a unique and stand-alone experience that invites audience members to become a choir and sing in a site that they would not normally be able to sing in.

Why We Are Here! is Nightswimming’s site specific pop-up choir that places audiences at the centre of an exhilarating choral adventure — and they’re the singers.

Nightswimming is an award-winning Toronto-based dramaturgical theatre company with a national mandate focused on research, creation and performance through commissioning and developing new Canadian plays, musical works and dance.

Our annual SPARK Festival will feature six productions along with workshops and a host of free events.

Season Ticket holders can purchase a SPARK Pass to save on these shows. Single tickets for SPARK shows are on sale now. Drop us a line if you ‘d like us to email you when single tickets go on sale.

The 2018 SPARK Festival is generously supported by

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DANIEL MACIVOR IN WHO KILLED SPALDING GRAY? – PHOTO BY GUNTAR KRAVIS / TORQUIL CAMPBELL IN TRUE CRIME – PHOTO BY DAHLIA KATZ / NORAH SADAVA AND AMY NOSTBAKKEN IN MOUTHPIECE – PHOTO BY BROOKE WEDLOCK / MATTHEW WADDELL AND ERIC ROSE IN TOMORROW’S CHILD – PHOTO BY LAURA ANZOLA / TIFFANY AYALIK IN CAFE DAUGHTER – PHOTO BY ED ELLIS