How To Wildside

Centaur’s hottest two weeks of winter. Daring, ground-breaking, experimental. FREE.

~ The Hottest Two Weeks of Winter Just Got Hotter ~

Centaur Theatre is very pleased to be able to present the 24th edition of the Wildside Festival, taking place online from January 12th to 31st, 2021. For the second consecutive year Centaur is partnering with La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines (SKIN) and Centaur’s current Associate Artist, Rose Plotek, once again curates the festival, which promises to be its most inventive yet. 

As we enter the tenth month of the pandemic I feel like Wildside, a vehicle for theatre that pushes boundaries and exposes a broad array of voices, is more essential than ever. They are smart, risk-taking experimentalists with diverse interests and artistic influences who love a good dare … the very essence of the festival.

– Eda Holmes, Centaur Theatre Artistic & Executive Director

Live Interviews on Premiere Nights

The night of each premiere at 7PM, there will be a 15 minute live interview between Rose and the play’s creator viewable on Facebook or Youtube. Then head back to our website to watch the shows.

Couldn’t make it to the premiere? No problem! Our Wildside shows will be available to view for the duration of the Wildside festival. All videos will be featured on the show page on our website as soon as they are available.

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Viewing

All opening performances, except SKIN, are at 7pm, and once each play opens, it will be available on the website until January 31th, 2021. Videos will be available on each Wildside show webpage for viewing anytime, anywhere from the premiere night up to January 31th.

From January 18 through 21, a different episode of SKIN will be presented live each night at 8pm. They will be repeated in the same order from January 25 through 28 and a final compilation of all four episodes will be online for January 29, 30 and 31.

Our priority this year was to support local artists whose livelihoods have come to abrupt halt. I approached theatre makers whose work resonates with Wildside, asking them to create whatever they wanted in relation to what’s happening in the world right now. It’s really exciting for the artists and the audiences, all the more because of the present dearth of live theatre.

– Rose Plotek, Centaur Theatre Associate Artist & Wildside Festival Curator

January 12 7PM – Montrealer Todd Houseman, and artistic partner, Lady Vanessa Cardona, subvert the idea of ‘red face’ with a freshly condensed cabaret (The Whiteface Cabaret) of their 2018 play, Whiteface, a satire integrating movement and mask to un-mask the complexities of Indigenous appropriation. 

January 13 7PM – Sophie El Assaad’s richly evocative Black Balloon: Leila, presents a girl struggling with her identity within an environment unsuited to her. 

January 14 7PM – Greg MacArthur’s 453 St-François-Xavier: a building. a future. an audio tour takes audiences on a sci-fi dive into Centaur’s potential futures. Following its metamorphosis from stock exchange to theatre, what other incarnations lay in store for the space? 

January 15 7PM – In a digital-friendly reimagining, MoonCow Theatre Co. presents an abridged version of its haunting adaptation of Night Cows, the 1979 seminal theatrical text by Québécois & Indigenous creator, Jovette Marchessault. Using shadow puppetry, it brings together Indigenous, Anglophone, and Francophone approaches to reclaim Queer and feminist histories, asking audiences to imagine: what do liberation and connection feel like today?

January 18, 19, 20, 21 8PM (TBC) – The always surprising Leslie Baker returns to Wildside, teaming up with trailblazers PWM’s Emma Tibaldo and Scapegoat Carnivale’s Joseph Shragge, to create The Bakery’s SKIN, an imaginative examination of the satisfaction of living, inspired by a two thousand year old text and a photo of a doorway. SKIN is co-presented with La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines and is the only Wildside production that will broadcast a different episode every night and incorporate live performance.

Catalyst @ Centaur

For this year’s iteration, all of the creators are local and the newly conceived Catalyst @ Centaur will make its debut. 

Catalyst @ Centaur will dominate the second weekend of Wildside at 2PM Saturday Jan 30 and Sunday Jan 31 to present artists from various cultural and artistic disciplines each evening, reading excerpts from their plays-in-progress. Ms. Plotek will also animate a Q&A after each reading.

Montreal’s creative community is expanding rapidly; more opportunities for diverse creators to try new things, receive professional artistic support, and a platform to showcase their work are greatly needed. Catalyst @ Centaur is Centaur’s step toward addressing those needs.