UBC THEATRE & FILM PRESENTS LES BELLES-SOEURSON THE SUBJECT

LES BELLES-SOEURS Poster

THE DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & FILM AT UBC PRESENTSLES BELLES-SOEURS BY MICHEL TREMBLAY

Directed by Final Year MFA Directing Student Diane Brown

– RAUCOUS. REALISTIC. WOMEN.

Groundbreaking Les Belles-soeurs Explodes with Fresh Direction.

Michel Tremblay’s two-act play, first produced in 1968, against the backdrop of Quebec's quiet revolution, changed Quebec theatre, with its kitchen-sink representation of ordinary women speaking in their own dialect: Joual.

Translated into English here, these 15 women tell the story of Germaine, the lucky winner of one million goldstar tickets.  When her friends, neighbours, and family members join her in working-class Montreal to celebrate, her windfall ends up igniting lurking resentments.

MFA Director Diane Brown welcomes Choreographer Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg and set designers Nikolai Kuchin and Sarah Sako (UBC Architecture) to the creative team of Les Belles-soeurs. Along with the Theatre Design and Production and BFA Acting final and intermediate students, Canada’s most popular play ends our season with a foot-stomping bang.

Diane Brown, a multi award-winning director/actor, is the Artistic Director of Ruby Slippers Theatre. Selected directing credits: You Will Remember Me, After Me, Life Savers, The Waiting Room, The Leisure Society, Trout Stanley, Down Dangerous Passes Road, The Winners, The Cat Who Ate Her Husband. Selected acting: The Duchess a.k.a. Wallis Simpson, Communion, A Beautiful View, Sled, Stone and Ashes. Diane is the 2016/17 recipient of the prestigious Bra d’Or Award from the Playwrights Guild of Canada recognizing her years of producing, directing and championing works by women.

Media Requests:

Andrea Rabinovitch
Office: 604.822.3723, Cell: 604.314.3905
andrea.rabinovitch@ubc.ca

March 16 - April 1, 2017
Wednesday-Saturday. 7:30 pm.

Preview: March 15.

Frederic Wood Theatre
6354 Crescent Rd.
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CANADA
Wayfinding: http://www.maps.ubc.ca

Tickets:

SINGLE TICKETS:

Adult: $24.50
Seniors: $16.50
Students: $11.50
UBC Alumni: $10, Youth: $5.

BOX OFFICE: 604.822.2678 or box.office@ubc.ca or www.ubctheatretickets.com

 

Theatre Director Diane Brown

Theatre Directordiane brown

LES BELLES-SOEURS

Diane is a multi award-winning director and actor, and the long time Artistic Director of Ruby Slippers Theatre. During her mid-career studies here at UBC she has been grateful for many awards, including the Sydney J. Risk Award.

Selected directing credits: You Will Remember Me, After Me, Life Savers, The Waiting Room, The Leisure Society, Trout Stanley, Down Dangerous Passes Road, The Winners, The Cat Who Ate Her Husband. Selected acting: The Duchess a.k.a. Wallis Simpson, Communion, A Beautiful View, Sled, Stone and Ashes.

Diane is the Chair of Theatre Cares Vancouver. She is also on the Theatre Advisory Committee for Studio 58, and involved with several social justice and environmental initiatives.

Diane is honoured to be the 2016/17 recipient of the prestigious Bra d’Or Award from the Playwrights Guild of Canada in recognition of her many years of producing, directing and championing works by women.

 

Theatre Director Diane Brown

playwrightmichel tremblay

LES BELLES-SOEURS

Michel Tremblay, CQ (born 25 June 1942) is a French Canadian novelist and playwright.

Tremblay was born in Montreal, Quebec, where he grew up in the French-speaking neighbourhood of Plateau Mont-Royal, at the time of his birth a neighbourhood with a working-class character and joual dialect, something that would heavily influence his work. Tremblay's first professionally produced play, Les Belles-Sœurs, was written in 1965 and premiered at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert on August 28, 1968. It transformed the old guard of Canadian theatre and introduced joual to the mainstream. It stirred up controversy by portraying the lives of working class women and attacking the straight-laced, deeply religious society of mid-20th century Quebec.

The most profound and lasting effects of Tremblay's early plays, including Hosanna and La Duchesse de Langeais, were the barriers they toppled in Quebec society. Until the Quiet Revolution of the early 1960s, Tremblay saw Quebec as a poor, working-class province dominated by an English-speaking elite and the Roman Catholic Church. Tremblay's work was part of a vanguard of liberal, nationalist thought that helped create an essentially modern society. His most famous plays are usually centered on homosexual characters. The women are usually strong but possessed with demons they must vanquish. It is said he sees Quebec as a matriarchal society. He is considered one of the best playwrights for women. In the late 1980s, Les Belles-soeurs ("The Sisters-in-Law") was produced in Scotland in Scots, as The Guid-Sisters ("guid-sister" being Scots for "sister-in-law"). His work has been translated into many languages, including Yiddish, and including such works as Sainte-Carmen de la Main, Ç'ta ton tour, Laura Cadieux, and Forever Yours, Marilou (À toi pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou).

He has been openly gay throughout his public life, and he has written many novels (The Duchess and the Commoner, La nuit des princes charmants, Le Coeur découvert, Le Coeur éclaté) and plays (Hosanna, La duchesse de Langeais, Fragments de mensonges inutiles) centred on gay characters.[1] In a 1987 interview with Shelagh Rogers for CBC Radio's The Arts Tonight, he remarked that he has always avoided behaviours he has considered masculine; for example, he does not smoke and he noted that he was 45 years old and did not know how to drive a car. "I think I am a rare breed," he said, "A homosexual who doesn't like men." He claims one of his biggest regrets in life was not telling his mother that he was gay, before she died.

His latest play to receive wide acclaim is For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, a funny and nostalgic play, centered on the memories of his mother. He later published the Plateau Mont-Royal Chronicles, a cycle of six novels including The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant (La grosse femme d'à côté est enceinte, 1978) and The Duchess and the Commoner (La duchesse et le roturier, 1982). The second novel of this series, Therese and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel (Thérèse et Pierrette à l'école des Saints-Anges, 1980), was one of the novels chosen for inclusion in the French version of Canada Reads, Le combat des livres, broadcast on Radio-Canada in 2005, where it was championed by union activist Monique Simard.

Tremblay worked also on a television series entitled Le Cœur découvert (The Heart Laid Bare), about the lives of a gay couple in Quebec, for the French-language TV network Radio-Canada. In 2005 he completed another novel cycle, the Cahiers (Le Cahier noir (translated as The Black Notebook), Le Cahier rouge, Le Cahier bleu), dealing with the changes that occurred in 1960s Montreal during the Quiet Revolution. In 2009 The Fat Woman Next Door was a finalist in CBC's prestigious Canada Reads competition.

Tremblay has received numerous awards in recognition of his work. These include the Prix Victor-Morin (1974), the Prix France-Québec (1984), the Chalmers Award (1986) and the Molson Prize (1994).

He received the Lieutenant-Governor's award for Ontario in 1976 and 1977. Tremblay was named the "Montréalais le plus remarquable des deux dernières décennies dans le domaine du théâtre" (the most remarkable Montrealer of the past two decades in theatre) (1978). In 1991 he was appointed Officier de l'Ordre de France, and in the same year, Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Québec. He is also a recipient of the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France (1994).

In 1999, Tremblay received a Governor General's Performing Arts Award, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts.This produced controversy when several well-known Quebec nationalists suggested that he should refuse the award. While he did not do this, he did admit, for the first time, that he had refused the Order of Canada in 1990.

In 2000, Encore une fois, si vous le permettez (For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again) won a Chalmers Award and a Dora Mavor Moore Award.

 

LES BELLES-SOEURSdesign portfolio

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advance photos:
LES BELLES-SOEURS

L-R: Sarah Jane, Bronwyn Henderson, Cassandra Phillips Grande. Photo: Emily Cooper

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advance photos:
LES BELLES-SOEURS

L-R: Taylor Scott, Tai Amy Grauman, Rowan Denis. Photo: Emily Cooper

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advance photos:
LES BELLES-SOEURS

L-R: Sarah Jane, Tai Amy Grauman, Bronwyn Henderson, Taylor-Scott, Rowan Denis. Photo: Emily Cooper

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advance photos:
LES BELLES-SOEURS

L-R: Sarah-Jane, Taylor Scott, Bronwyn Henderson, Cassandra Phillips Grande, Tai Amy Grauman, Rowan Denis. Photo: Emily Cooper

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video trailer
filmed & edited by Andy Alvarez

Music: La Bastringue performed by Chris Perry

 

 

LES BELLES-SOEURSTHE COMPANY

THE CAST & creative team

THE CAST:

Bronwyn Henderson  Germaine Lauzon
Heidi Elric  Linda Lauzon
Sarah Jane  Rose Ouimet
Stefanie Michaud  Gabrielle Jodoin
Taylor Scott  Lisette De Courval
Tai Amy Grauman  Marie- Ange Brouillette
Natalie Backerman  Yvette Longpré
Rowan Denis  Des-Neiges Verrette
Sophia Alexandra Thérèse Dubuc
Daria Banu  Olivine Dubuc
Sabrina Vellani  Angéline Sauvé
Olivia Lang  Rhéauna Bibeau
Sachi Nisbet  Lise Paquette
Shona Struthers  Ginette Ménard
Cassandra Phillips-Grande  Pierrette Guerin

CREATIVE TEAM:

Diane Brown  Director
Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Diane Brown Choreographers
Rachel Helten  Assistant Choreographer
Tory Ip  Lighting Designer
Edward Dawson  Assistant Lighting Designer, Head LX, Light Board Programmer
Harika Xu  Assistant Lighting Designer, Light Board Programmer
Eva Zheng  Light Board Operator
Sammie Hatch  Sound Designer
Erika Champion  Assistant Sound Designer
Ashley Kim  Assistant Sound Designer
Winnif Ngai  Sound Board Operator
Nikolai Kuchin  Set Designer
Sarah Sako  Set Designer
Stefan Zubovic  Assistant Set Designer
Ellen Gu  Costume Designer
Nicolette Szabo  Assistant Costume Designer
Cora Wu  Assistant Costume Designer
Madeleine Molgat Laurin  Wardrobe Crew Head
Ziling Gao, Linh Le, Mia Nikoo  Costume Run Crew
Patricia Jiang  Stage Manager
Kanon Hewitt  Assistant Stage Manager 
Holly Karpuik  Assistant Stage Manager
Nanako Emori, Brett Slack, Emily Spencer, Aya Yuhara  Show Run Crew 

ADVISORS  AND PRODUCTION TEAM:

Jay Henrickson  Production Manager
Cam Cronin  Administrator
Keith Smith Technical Director
Jim Fergusson  Stage & LX Specialist
Lynn Burton  Head of Properties
Diane Park  Head of Wardrobe
Tony Koelwyn  Box Office
Andrea Rabinovitch  Marketing
Tom Scholte  MFA Directing Advisor
Brad Powers  Technical Production Advisor
Marijka Asbeek Brusse  Stage Management Advisor
Robert Gardiner  Scenery and Lighting Design Advisor
Jacqueline Firkins  Costume Design Advisor
Carey Dodge  Sound Design Advisor
Cathy Burnett  Movement Coach
Brad Gibson  Voice Coach
Gayle Murphy  BFA Acting
Kanon Hewitt, Jessica Warren Props Work Study
Alaia Hamer, Linda Yang  Costume Work Study

STUDENT PRODUCTION CREW:

Duston Baranow-Watts
Erika Champion
Talia Chang
Ed Dawson
Nanako Emori
Ziling Gao 
Ellen Gu
Alaia Hamer
Sammie Hatch
Kanon Hewitt
Mai Inagaki
Anita Jian
Alice Jiang
Patricia Jiang
Holly Karpuik 
Aliya Khan
Ashley Kim
Brenna Kwon
Samantha Lam
Linh Le
Fiona Leung
Gwendolyn Loi
Mahshid Maleki
Catherine McLaren
Madeleine Molgat Laurin
Wing Yee Ngai
Mia Nikoo
Yuyu Ogido
Michelle Olson
Amanda Parafina
Evan Ren
Lukya Rong 
Jessica Routliffe
Vanka Salim
Esther Sentoso
Brett Slack
Emily Spencer
Nicolette Szabo
Vanessa Tang
Sony Tsai
Sucina Tsang
Chloe Wai
Jacqueline Wax
Nicole Weismiller
Cora Wu
Harika Xu 
Ryan Yee
Aya Yuhara
Melicia Sabina Zaini
Eva Zheng
Stefan Zubovic

MARKETING INTERNS:

Simran Dale, Ofir Ovadia 

UBC DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & FILM STAFF AND ADMINISTRATION 

Stephen Heatley  Department Head
Cam Cronin  Department Administrator
Ian Patton  Academic Administrator
Zanna Downes  Theatre and Film Production Graduate Secretary
Karen Tong  Theatre and Film Studies Graduate Secretary
Jay Henrickson  Manager, Technical Theatre Production
Jim Fergusson  Stage and Lighting Specialist
Keith Smith  Stage and Lighting Specialist
Lynn Burton  Properties Specialist
Kanon Hewitt, Jessica Warren  Properties Work Study
Jodi Jacyk  Head of Wardrobe, Costume Specialist
Alaia Hamer, Linda Yang  Costume Work Study
Tony Koelwyn  Theatre at UBC Box Office
Andrea Rabinovitch  Marketing and Communications Coordinator 
Linda Fenton-Malloy  Web Designer
Sarah Crauder  Film Program Administrator
Stuart McFarlane  Film Equipment Manager
Richard Payment  Visual Resource Librarian

CREATIVE COLLABORATORS
Jonathan Wood  Graphic Designer
Emily Cooper  Advance Promotional Photography
Javier Sotres  Dress Rehearsal Photography