Conference marks Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s 50th anniversary

by | May 29, 2026 | Alumni, Events, Faculty, indigenous, Research, Theatre

Keynote speaker Nininsky Lee Aquino

Our Department of Theatre was proud to support the 50th annual Canadian Association for Theatre Research conference, which took place at UVic from May 26-29 and welcomed an exciting mix of theatre artists, scholars and researchers from across Canada plus Phoenix students, faculty & alumni.

Co-chaired by Theatre professor Sasha Kovacs & University of Toronto’s Sarah Robbins, CATR50 brought together over 200 people to investigate questions of inheritance, transition, transformation and change. The conference was highlighted by passionate conversations — kicked off by keynote speaker Nininsky Lee Aquino — and performances by Git Hayetsk dancers, Theatre SKAM’s Aster Brae plus drag performances at The Vicious Poodle. Other highlights included the conference exhibition, panel, roundtable, praxis workshop, seminar and working group contributions.

The Canadian Association for Theatre Research was originally created in 1976 under the name “The Association for Canadian Theatre History.” Since its inception it has been the principal catalyst for expansion of theatre research in Canada, as evidenced by the change in name in 1990. It aims to shape Canada’s theatrical present and future by preserving and interpreting our theatrical past and investigating areas of contemporary theory and performance. Specifically, the Association works to promote research and publication of the results of this research into Canadian theatre and drama, to encourage the collection and analysis of Canadian theatre materials, and to maintain a communications network for the exchange of information and research in progress.

Sasha Kovacs & Sarah Robbins

This event wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada Connections grant program, the Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories Partnership, Canada’s Theatre Museum, Playwright’s Guild of Canada, Playwright’s Canada Press, Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Talon Books, Belfry Theatre, the Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre plus numerous other departmental and community sponsors.

Special appreciation to Kurt Archer and previous co-chair Kara Flanagan for facilitating community artist engagement in this year’s event, Jenn Boulay for supporting accessibility plus all members of the incredible programming and local arrangements team for contributing to this memorable gathering!

Act 2 continues online June 11-12. See the CATR website for more info to join the digital act of the event.

Students & volunteers participating in Git Hayetsk performance

New Phoenix season of plays announced

by | Apr 30, 2026 | Graduate, Theatre, Undergraduate

Exciting news: our Phoenix Theatre has announced their new season for the 2026/27 season, and it features a mix of a Tony-winning musical, a beloved classic and a bold new play. But did you know Phoenix productions also serve an integral academic part for students enrolled in the Department of Theatre’s Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees?

When you attend the Phoenix, you experience some of this city’s most exciting and eclectic theatre while participating in the education of our students. Our students learn by doing, so they’re involved in every aspect of these productions: from acting to the design, creation and management of sets, costumes, props, sound and lighting. Discover the difference that the youth, talent and energy of our students can make and get a preview of Canada’s next generation of theatre artists!

Exciting news: our Phoenix Theatre has announced their new season for the 2026/27 season, and it features a mix of a Tony-winning musical, a beloved classic and a bold new play. But did you know Phoenix productions also serve an integral academic part for students enrolled in the Department of Theatre’s Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees?

When you attend the Phoenix, you experience some of this city’s most exciting and eclectic theatre while participating in the education of our students. Our students learn by doing, so they’re involved in every aspect of these productions: from acting to the design, creation and management of sets, costumes, props, sound and lighting. Discover the difference that the youth, talent and energy of our students can make and get a preview of Canada’s next generation of theatre artists!

The Cherry Orchard

November 5-14, 2026 • 
Guest director: Carmen Aguirre

Chekhov’s final masterpiece — a portrait of changing fortunes in a world on the brink of transformation. Returning from Paris to her family’s estate and beloved cherry orchard, Madame Ranevskaya discovers the property is deeply in debt and at risk of being lost. With the orchard facing a possible auction to cover what is owed, the family clings to memory and tradition, reluctant to face what lies ahead. Infused with Chekhov’s sharp wit, the play is set against a rapidly changing social landscape. As the auction nears, the future of the orchard and the life they have always known hangs in the balance.

Michael Frayn’s (Noises Off) translation is praised for capturing Chekhov’s delicate balance of comedy and tragedy. His lively, modern language highlights the play’s humour and irony while maintaining its emotional depth, making this classic accessible for today’s audiences. Chekhov himself insisted that The Cherry Orchard was a comedy and even described parts of it as farce. He was famously frustrated when Konstantin Stanislavski, the co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre and director of the play’s 1904 premiere, staged it as a tragedy. That tension between laughter and loss remains at the heart of the play.

The Wolves

February 4-13, 2027 • MFA Director: Amanda Lisman

Jump. Shuffle. Lunge. Repeat! A girls’ indoor soccer team moves through their pre-game warm-ups over a season, capturing a raw, energetic snapshot of adolescence. As they stretch and train, their conversations move from school and relationships to bigger questions about the world and what lies ahead. The familiar rhythm of teenage banter blends humour and gossip with moments of unexpected depth, gradually revealing the group’s personalities and social dynamics. Rather than centring on a single main character, the story unfolds through the collective voice of the team. Funny, vulnerable, and deeply human, it’s a candid portrait of teenage girls coming into their own.

“I wanted to see a portrait of teenage girls as human beings — as complicated, nuanced, very idiosyncratic people who weren’t just girlfriends or sex objects or manic pixie dream girls but who were athletes and daughters and students and scholars and people who were trying actively to figure out who they were in this changing world around them.” — Wolves playwright Sarah DeLappe

Curtains

March 4-20, 2027 • Director: Jacques Lemay

Golden Age Broadway sparkle meets the intrigue of a classic detective mystery in this Tony- and Drama Desk Award-winning musical with book by Rupert Holmes (“Escape: The Pina Colada Song”), music by John Kander & lyrics by Fred Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret).

When the supremely untalented leading lady of a Broadway-bound show drops dead during her final bow, the entire cast and crew become suspects. Enter Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, a detective—and devoted musical theatre fan—determined to solve the case. This large-scale production delivers big laughs, dazzling numbers, and plenty of twists. By the final curtain, the biggest question isn’t just whodunit, but whether the show can go on.
Featuring music by legendary songwriting duo John Kander and Fred Ebb, Curtains is directed and choreographed by Jacques Lemay, whose previous Phoenix Theatre shows include audience-favourite musicals The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2024) and The Drowsy Chaperone (2018).

Find individual or season ticket information at the Phoenix Theatre website.

Exciting news: our Phoenix Theatre has announced their new season for the 2026/27 season, and it features a mix of a Tony-winning musical, a beloved classic and a bold new play. But did you know Phoenix productions also serve an integral academic part for students enrolled in the Department of Theatre’s Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees?

When you attend the Phoenix, you experience some of this city’s most exciting and eclectic theatre while participating in the education of our students. Our students learn by doing, so they’re involved in every aspect of these productions: from acting to the design, creation and management of sets, costumes, props, sound and lighting. Discover the difference that the youth, talent and energy of our students can make and get a preview of Canada’s next generation of theatre artists!

The Cherry Orchard

November 5-14, 2026 • 
Guest director: Carmen Aguirre

Chekhov’s final masterpiece — a portrait of changing fortunes in a world on the brink of transformation. Returning from Paris to her family’s estate and beloved cherry orchard, Madame Ranevskaya discovers the property is deeply in debt and at risk of being lost. With the orchard facing a possible auction to cover what is owed, the family clings to memory and tradition, reluctant to face what lies ahead. Infused with Chekhov’s sharp wit, the play is set against a rapidly changing social landscape. As the auction nears, the future of the orchard and the life they have always known hangs in the balance.

Michael Frayn’s (Noises Off) translation is praised for capturing Chekhov’s delicate balance of comedy and tragedy. His lively, modern language highlights the play’s humour and irony while maintaining its emotional depth, making this classic accessible for today’s audiences. Chekhov himself insisted that The Cherry Orchard was a comedy and even described parts of it as farce. He was famously frustrated when Konstantin Stanislavski, the co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre and director of the play’s 1904 premiere, staged it as a tragedy. That tension between laughter and loss remains at the heart of the play.

The Wolves

February 4-13, 2027 • MFA Director: Amanda Lisman

Jump. Shuffle. Lunge. Repeat! A girls’ indoor soccer team moves through their pre-game warm-ups over a season, capturing a raw, energetic snapshot of adolescence. As they stretch and train, their conversations move from school and relationships to bigger questions about the world and what lies ahead. The familiar rhythm of teenage banter blends humour and gossip with moments of unexpected depth, gradually revealing the group’s personalities and social dynamics. Rather than centring on a single main character, the story unfolds through the collective voice of the team. Funny, vulnerable, and deeply human, it’s a candid portrait of teenage girls coming into their own.

“I wanted to see a portrait of teenage girls as human beings — as complicated, nuanced, very idiosyncratic people who weren’t just girlfriends or sex objects or manic pixie dream girls but who were athletes and daughters and students and scholars and people who were trying actively to figure out who they were in this changing world around them.” — Wolves playwright Sarah DeLappe

Curtains

March 4-20, 2027 • Director: Jacques Lemay

Golden Age Broadway sparkle meets the intrigue of a classic detective mystery in this Tony- and Drama Desk Award-winning musical with book by Rupert Holmes (“Escape: The Pina Colada Song”), music by John Kander & lyrics by Fred Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret).

When the supremely untalented leading lady of a Broadway-bound show drops dead during her final bow, the entire cast and crew become suspects. Enter Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, a detective—and devoted musical theatre fan—determined to solve the case. This large-scale production delivers big laughs, dazzling numbers, and plenty of twists. By the final curtain, the biggest question isn’t just whodunit, but whether the show can go on.
Featuring music by legendary songwriting duo John Kander and Fred Ebb, Curtains is directed and choreographed by Jacques Lemay, whose previous Phoenix Theatre shows include audience-favourite musicals The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2024) and The Drowsy Chaperone (2018).

Find individual or season ticket information at the Phoenix Theatre website.

Curtains

March 4-20, 2027 • Director: Jacques Lemay

Golden Age Broadway sparkle meets the intrigue of a classic detective mystery in this Tony- and Drama Desk Award-winning musical with book by Rupert Holmes (“Escape: The Pina Colada Song”), music by John Kander & lyrics by Fred Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret).

When the supremely untalented leading lady of a Broadway-bound show drops dead during her final bow, the entire cast and crew become suspects. Enter Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, a detective—and devoted musical theatre fan—determined to solve the case. This large-scale production delivers big laughs, dazzling numbers, and plenty of twists. By the final curtain, the biggest question isn’t just whodunit, but whether the show can go on.
Featuring music by legendary songwriting duo John Kander and Fred Ebb, Curtains is directed and choreographed by Jacques Lemay, whose previous Phoenix Theatre shows include audience-favourite musicals The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2024) and The Drowsy Chaperone (2018).

Find individual or season ticket information at the Phoenix Theatre website or call the box office at 250-721-8000.

The research behind the curtain of In My Day

by | Mar 31, 2026 | Events, health, Research, Theatre

By focusing on BC’s historical HIV/AIDS crisis, the new UVic production In My Day highlighted collaboration between researchers, community and performance-makers

Neon lights, club beats, a generation on the edge of disaster: when UVic’s Phoenix Theatre staged the moving and dynamic verbatim play In My Day in March 2026, it brought an essential chapter of Canadian history to life on the stage.

In My Day was both inspired by and based on the UVic oral-history research project “HIV In My Day”, which was supported by the School of Public Health & Social Policy, funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council and now housed in the UVic Libraries Special Collections & University Archives. Between 2017 and 2020, “HIV In My Day” collected sound and video interviews with long-term HIV survivors and their caregivers about their experiences living through the first 15 years of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Vancouver.

The original “HIV In My Day” archive was established by Nathan Lachowsky, then a professor with UVic’s School of Public Health and Social Policy and now Dean of UNBC’s Faculty of Human & Health Sciences, but the resulting play In My Day was written by Victoria playwright Rick Waines and guest directed by former Belfry Theatre artistic director Roy Surette. Nearly 100 authentic voices drawn from the original archival material were brought to life by a cast of 19 student actors, using themes of joy, care and connection to tell the story of life in the queer community during the early days of the epidemic.

“What does performance do to both archival and oral histories, in terms of activating that material?” asks Department of Theatre professor Sasha Kovacs, whose own SSHRC funding via the Gatherings: Archival and Oral Histories of Performance partnership also supported this production. “And what does it mean for a new generation of students to understand this particular moment in history, to hear these stories from those bodies and these perspectives?”

Set designer Claudia Fraser’s research brought BC’s turbulent AIDS history to life (photo: Dean Kalyan)

Life becomes art through research

A Victoria playwright whose work uses autofiction and verbatim material to discuss his experiences living with HIV and the historical impacts HIV has on communities, Waines is intimately involved with this story. A hemophiliac who was diagnosed with HIV at just 21 in the 1980s, he was both one of the interviews for, and transcriber of, the original oral-history project; now, he uses the tools of narrative theatre to amplify his lived experience and challenge ongoing stigmas.

“This is a piece of memorial art,” he says. “It’s a powerful way of telling the stories of people who are no longer with us — it’s a naming, like, ‘Here we are, here are our stories.’ You’re going to get to know some of the folks through the memories of those of us who survived.”

As a play, In My Day was first workshopped in 2021 in the Belfry Theatre’s SPARK festival, then later performed in 2023 by Vancouver’s ZeeZee Theatre at the Cultch. The Phoenix production offers a significant reworking of the material to fit the student cast — “including a guy named Rick, who’s transcribing these interviews poorly and slowly,” laughs Waines.

Part of Avery Kester’s lobby display

In all iterations of the play to date, Waines has worked with young casts lacking firsthand experience of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, so educating them — as well as audiences — is a priority. “Not just the dates, names and drugs, but the feeling [of having HIV/AIDS] in their bodies,” he says. “Young queer folk don’t always understand or know the genealogy of their history . . . so when a young queer couple in the audience stands up at a talk-back session and says what the show meant to him or her, that’s enough for me.”

“It’s been fantastic having Rick here throughout the whole rehearsal period,” notes Kovacs. “Being able to share first-hand memories of these times has been invaluable — and the student playing the character ‘Rick’ [Elliot Baskin Smith] has been regularly conversing with him, which has been a fun part of the process.”

In fact, the two Ricks — Waines and Baskin Smith — both did a live interview with CBC Radio about their experiences working on this play.

Projection designer Molly Somers captured Vancouver’s queer hotspots (photo: Dean Kalyan)

Theatre with an ongoing impact

Kovacs believes the impact of In My Day goes well beyond the Theatre department and into the broader community: by dramatizing the oral history archive, the play provides an opportunity for students to understand how their work can serve larger goals and priorities — which is one of the goals of any research-informed creation project, like the Climate Disaster Project’s verbatim  survivor play Eyes of the Beast, presented at the Phoenix in 2024. “This is an opportunity to think more about producing this kind of work,” says Kovacs.

For In My Day, the student cast all had access to the original interviews — both written transcripts and videos — which Kovacs describes as “a key part of the process.” She also ensured that the show’s student design team spent time in the Museum of Vancouver’s gay and lesbian archives to properly capture the period. In this work, the students also learned about the historical intersections of performance and health activisms across more locally situated 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

“This production not only catalyzes all that work but is also a way of encouraging students to engage with raw archival material. I sometimes think we take for granted how progressive the work was in these communities at that time . . . the way they were talking about gender and sexuality was really groundbreaking.”

Costume designer Helga Woolsey recreated the queer looks of the 1980s (photo: Dean Kalyan)

Collaborating on authentic history

Kovacs feels interdisciplinary projects like In My Day offer an ideal opportunity to educate students about the importance of collaboration between researchers and performance-makers. “This is all about engaging community with public health history: how do we engage those conversations into artistic practice?” she asks. “But with this production, I’m also interested in how we care for the health of the performers lifting this powerful, emotional and authentic work — that’s something we need to talk about more in the work we do as theater artists. While we’re telling stories about health, we also need to keep our creative team healthy and safe.”

With that in mind, In My Day honours not only those who were lost but the resilient communities who continue to care for one another and shape our collective future. During the play’s run, Phoenix Theatre also hosted an HIV community day, supported by UVic’s Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health, and presented an engaging visual timeline (by local artist Peggy Frank), art pieces from HIV positive community members and an exhibit in the lobby (created by Applied Theatre MA student Avery Kester, with guidance from Kovacs) which offered further insight into the interviews and archival materials that inspired the play and its production.

A close-up of Peggy Frank’s timeline

“Most plays and shows about HIV/AIDS focus on the American or British experience, so In My Day also gives us an opportunity to reflect on a more localized circumstance,” concludes Kovacs. “What are the stories being told within our local community, being created by local theatre companies? Who’s devoted to fostering the voices of folks who actually live here? This is a big moment for the Phoenix to produce a Canadian story by a Canadian playwright, while also advancing the faculty’s strategic priority to address the intersections of arts and health.”

—John Threlfall, with files from Claudia Phillips

Take our Spring 2026 student survey!

by | Mar 23, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Award, Graduate, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

1969 was a year of transformation: the moon landing, the Stonewall riots, Woodstock, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre opens, Margaret Atwood publishes her first novel, Canada becomes officially bilingual . . . amidst that time of change, Fine Arts emerged as UVic’s newest Faculty.

With our 60th anniversary coming up in 2029, Fine Arts is currently doing a short survey of our community, and student opinions and experiences are an essential part of this process. We invite you to add your voices with this anonymous survey: it only has eight questions and should take you less than 15 minutes.

Take the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/GRDP8LX

You’ll also see an option to enter to win one of ten $50 ONECard top-ups on the final page. Your prize entry will be totally separate from your anonymous survey responses.

Deadline for entries is April 7.

Win $1,000 in the Community Impact Award!

by | Mar 10, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, donor, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

Who wants to win $1,000? You do, of course!! Since 2021, we’ve given out over $15,000 to 13 students in our annual donor-funded Fine Arts Community Impact Award! If you’re a UVic Fine Arts undergrad (any year) who has been creatively active outside of your classes, then you qualify to enter the 2026 Fine Arts Community Impact Award.

This sixth annual, entry-level, juried award is designed to reward Fine Arts students who have demonstrated outstanding creative activity with Victoria’s larger creative community. The award is open to any full-time current or graduating undergraduate student registered in Art History & Visual Studies, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts or Writing. (Sorry, Fine Arts must be your declared major, not just an elective you’re taking.)

Entry deadline: A completed submission package — including the submission form and all supporting materials — must be received by 5pm Thursday, April 30.

Enter here: https://finearts.uvic.ca/forms/award/

What qualifies?

  • Any kind of art exhibit or curation project
  • Public readings or literary projects
  • Plays or performances
  • Concerts or recitals
  • Educational, digital or administrative work
  • Fundraisers or drag shows
  • Etc etc etc (we’re all about the etc!)

It doesn’t matter if you were paid or volunteered, organized or participated, are a continuing or graduating student — if you did something creative in Greater Victoria (between Sidney and Sooke) between Jan 2025 & April 2026 and it wasn’t for course credit, then you qualify!

Helpful hints

Our first helpful hint is simple: enter! We usually get less than 15 entries for this award, and give out two $1,000 prizes, so your odds are very good! Other suggestions:

  • if you’ve applied before but didn’t win, you can apply again (as long as your project falls into the current timeframe)
  • you can nominate yourself or be nominated by an organization or other person
  • speak to the awards criteria in your application
  • capture the immediate & overall impact of your project (remember, the jurors don’t know you or what you did, so make sure it’s clear)
  • include reference letters that speak about your involvement (rather than the overall organization or event)
  • help the jury get to know you as a student: what you’re studying, how this project fits into your creative practice or academic journey
  • include some photos of your nominated activity
  • if you received a grade for your activity, it probably doesn’t qualify for this award
  • read about our previous winners: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021.

Previous winners

Previous students have won for a wide variety of projects, including:

  • directing plays for Sooke Youth Theatre
  • working with the Early Music Society of the Islands
  • creating & painting a large-scale mural for the Island Medical Program
  • producing shows with Timetheft Theatre Society
  • mounting art exhibits at Xchanges Gallery & the fifty-fifty arts collective
  • coordinating youth workshops for Music Discoveries
  • setting up a livestream system for Christ Church Cathedral
  • creating The Vault Gallery at the Rockslide Studios
  • organizing an art show for the ArtSea Community Arts Council
  • working with the Victoria Children’s Choir
  • performing with Pacific Opera’s “Pop-Up Opera” initiative
  • volunteering with VOS Musical Theatre Society
  • interning with Open Space Artist-Run Centre

The fine print

Entry deadline: A completed submission package — including the submission form and all supporting materials — must be received by 5pm Thursday, April 30.

Enter here: https://finearts.uvic.ca/forms/award/

What you’ll need:

  1. A description of your community-engaged creative activity (maximum 500 words), including a title page with your contact information & declared program as of April 30 (ie: Writing, Visual Arts, etc)
  2. A letter from the organization or individual explaining how you were involved (maximum 300 words)
  3. Two letters of endorsement of the project (maximum two pages and from different people than #2: letters must be written by people who are not related to the nominee)
  4. Your resume, CV or short portfolio.

Questions? Email johnt@uvic.ca

About the award

Fine Arts has been the city’s artistic incubator for well over 50 years, helping to produce creative and scholarly talents across the cultural spectrum. Our campus community continues to contribute to the arts locally, nationally and internationally — with many of our students, alumni and teaching faculty now working in forms and mediums undreamt of when we were established in 1969. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, our Community Impact Awards put the spotlight on current students who are reaching beyond their full-time studies.

Read about our previous winners here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021.

The awards will be presented as part of the ProArt Alliance’s annual Greater Victoria Regional Arts Awards gala in fall 2026. Winners are expected to attend and receive their awards in person from the Dean of Fine Arts.

2025 Impact Award winners Sophie Hillstrom (left) and Sage Easton-Levy (right) with Fine Arts Dean Allana Lindgren

In My Day brings verbatim HIV/AIDS experiences to the stage

by | Mar 9, 2026 | Faculty, Theatre, Undergraduate

The cast of Phoenix Theatre’s In My Day (Photo: Dean Kalyan)

On March 12, the Phoenix Theatre opened their final mainstage production of the semester, In My Day, written by Rick Waines. Waines is a Victoria playwright whose work uses autofiction and verbatim material to discuss his experiences living with HIV and the historical impacts HIV has on communities. This play is no different, using themes of joy, care and connection to tell the story of life in the queer community during the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The performance is supported by the SSRHC project “HIV In My Day” which is a collection of interviews with long-term HIV survivors and their caregivers. The interviews focus on their experience with the epidemic, and Waines used these interviews to structure his play, incorporating nearly one hundred survivor’s voices.

Waines himself was diagnosed with HIV when he was 21, which became a driving factor for writing the play. “I wrote this for those of us who survived,” he says, and considers it important for us to look back and remember historically important stories like these.

Playwright Rick Waines

Director Roy Surette

A new script

As a play, In My Day was first workshopped in 2021 in the Belfry Theatre’s SPARK festival, then later performed in 2023 by Vancouver’s ZeeZee Theatre at the Cultch. Since then, it has been reworked to suit a Victoria audience, becoming the play that will be performed on the Phoenix stage with guest director Roy Surrette.

When reworking the play, Waines decided to change the structure by adding himself as a character. He describes this character as “a guy named Rick, who’s transcribing these interviews poorly and slowly.” Including Rick opened the opportunity to introduce additional characters from Waines’ personal life — Laurie Rose and Pei Lim. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to have conversations with the dead,” he says about writing characters based on his friends. “Because I miss them and they meant a lot to me.”

From “HIV In My Day” to In My Day

The SSRHC project that the play is based began with Nathan Lachowski, who’s in the School of Public Health and Social Policy. It began as a community-lead project where collaborators and researchers interviewed survivors of HIV/AIDS and their caregivers between 2017-2020 across Vancouver. The interviews focused on their experiences living through the epidemic, and created the collection of oral history in the form of video, audio, and transcripts that is now held in UVic’s Special Collections.

Sasha Kovacs, an associate professor in UVic’s theatre department, is the partnership liaison for the SSRHC project where she ensures that everyone involved in this project is supported. “I like to think of myself as the connector between and individual involved in this project, and all the other parts that are a part of it,” she says.

Her role also entails encouraging artists and researchers to think about what it means to stage oral histories. “What does performance do to both archival and to oral history in terms of activating that material?” she asks, emphasizing the importance of understanding the backstory of the play’s content.

Cast member Zaafir Devji (above) & with  Emma Moon, Nyx Martel & Patrick Jaworek (Photo: Dean Kalyan)

Working with students to understand the history

In all iterations of the play so far, Waines has worked with a young cast who don’t have firsthand experience of living through the HIV/AIDS epidemic like he does, so educating them is a priority. By the end of the process, Waines notices how deeply the cast knows the story they’re telling. “Not just the dates, names, and drugs, but the feeling in their bodies,” he says. “They’re digging into it … it’s clear to me that there’s a lot of feelings going on.”

Of course, a theatre production always comes with struggle, especially a huge show with blocking, choreography, and dancing like this one. Even so, Waines is impressed with the student cast and how quickly they were off book during rehearsals. “Amazing,” he calls them, “I’ve been thrilled with their energy and their commitment.”

Fulfilling theatre’s mandate

Last year, the Theatre department generated new department values, so it’s important that In My Day’s production fits within those. Kovacs describes the three values as using a good heart and mind to commit to nurturing an environment of passionate creativity, to think about health and wellness as one of the foundations of their work, and to create an inclusive community of belonging.

There’s a level of risk when taking on In My Day since it’s a new Canadian play, but Kovacs views it as “creative risk taking”. In the process of working on this production, they’re seeing places that the play needs additional work, and with their new value about uplifting passionate creativity, the theatre department is happy to take on that risk to uplift and continue working on this story.

Because In My Day is such an emotionally heavy piece, it’s necessary to consider the cast and crews health and wellness. “I think it’s something we need to talk about more,” comments Kovacs. “We’ve done some good work on preparing the company for that,” she continues, saying it’s important to question how they’re keeping their creative team healthy and safe.

Regarding an inclusive community, Kovacs explains that this goes beyond the theatre department to respond to the needs of the broader UVic community. In My Day reflects this value especially well since without Lachowski and the School of Public Health and Social Policy, the Phoenix wouldn’t have had the chance to put on this play. “It provides an opportunity for the students to understand that their work serves larger goals and priorities,” Kovacs says.

The future of In My Day

Going forward, the department hopes to highlight more historically important stories like they are with this production. There’s a history of research-informed creation existing in the theatre department, but they aren’t being produced. “This is an opportunity to think about now producing this [kind of] work,” says Kovacs.

Additionally, with his role as librettist, Waines is using the source archive for a new ambient, electronic verbatim opera titled “i am beauty” with Pacific Opera Victoria.

Get tickets for In My Day, which runs March 12-21 at UVic, including a pre-show lecture at 7pm Friday, March 13 and a special March 14 of community health day that includes admission to the show.

—Claudia Phillips, with files from John Threlfall