” Joy. Vitality. The desire to transmit. These are themes that run through most of the 11 shows brought together in La Licorne’s 2023-2024 programming. To this can be added the notions of plurality, balance and equity.
“The joy that runs through the stories, that inhabits the characters and that transcends the dialogues. Joy as the engine of creation at all levels. Joy as a factor of change, as a call to turn to the other”, explains the director of the company, Philippe Lambert, in an interview.
A favorite of Lambert among these multiple scenic proposals? The playful words of American author Clare Barron, with dance generation. This text will be premiered in French in October by Sophie Cadieux, her first production at La Licorne. Cadieux will conduct nine performers, including Mireille Métellus, Dominique Pétin and Pascale Renaud Hébert. By far the biggest production of the company next fall.
The return of Guylaine Tremblay
In September at the Grande Licorne, we will find Guylaine Tremblay in Underground Summers, a poetic and luminous work by Steve Gagnon. “The play was presented during the pandemic in front of small rooms. However, I wanted this production to really meet its audience,” explains the artistic director. The play will also be presented at La Bordée in Quebec City, from August 22 to September 2.
Toronto’s Cliff Cardinal, who is part of the Festival TransAmériques program, will be back in Montreal in September to present his irreverent reinterpretation of As you would likeby Shakespeare.
Sold out this spring, the play two golden women by Catherine Léger, directed by Philippe Lambert, will also return for a series of additional films in December 2023.
Another recovery, in February 2024: that of Ulster American by David Ireland, who will make a final stop at La Licorne, in addition to touring Quebec. Vincent Leclerc will take over the role of Jay, played by David Boutin at the creation, alongside Frédéric Blanchette and Lauren Hartley. The staging is signed by Maxime Denommée.
Indigenous dramaturgy
From January 29 to February 3, 2024, for the first time, La Licorne will host Indigenous Dramaturgy Week. On the menu of the event orchestrated by Charles Bender and Jean-Frédéric Messier, three public readings of plays by Indigenous playwrights, as well as meetings, workshops and discussions around the “strong, biting, funny and inspiring words” of First Nations authors in Canada.
Later in the winter, place for two monologues carried by actresses Ariel Charest and Fabiola Nyrva Aladin. The first plays in Loving each other well packagedby Cristina Moscini, and the second in A room for living-exs in times of extinction, by Miranda Rose, a Centaur production. The company Tableau Noir will produce the winning text for the Gratien-Gélinas prize, Volunteer, by Maud De Palma-Duquet. The novelist Roxanne Bouchard will deliver, under the direction of the director François Bernier, the text “coup de punch” 5 bullets in the head. “A dive into the intimacy of Canadian soldiers. While the theater man Jean-François Nadeau will humorously visit father-son relationships in Missed threads?
The 5 to 7 formula will return under the artistic direction of Marc-André Thibault. The actor Lyndz Dantiste will offer his “carte blanche” in March, while Mathieu Quesnel will settle in May 2024 in the Petite Licorne space, to inaugurate his Pirate Project. “In a spirit of great artistic and human freedom”, concludes Lambert.