In a city paralyzed by a housing crisis, three settlement workers must find homes for Syrian families waiting at Hotel Splendid East Van on the federal government’s impossible timeline. As they navigate bureaucracy, wannabe good Samaritans, landlords, families waiting, media scrutiny, and much more, their relationships strain in an environment spiralling out of control.
The upcoming world premiere (April and May 2025) is a co-production between Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Blackout Theatre, and the Firehall Arts Centre Spring 2025 in Vancouver at the Firehall Arts Centre and the Evergreen Cultural Centre.
RST is workshopping Frontliners as part of our Artist In Residency program.
This ain’t a sob story about war crimes, dementia, nor getting old. It’s a sprint down the memory lane of a butt-kickin’, bar-spittin’, tough grandma who escapes the care home to be with her family. When our favorite Filipino grandma Lola Basyang goes missing, it’s up to her grandchildren Nika and Jun-jun to bring her back to safety. Using their lola’s unfinished memoir, they find clues to her whereabouts, her full-of-beans origin story and the historical turmoils of their motherland. Reminiscent of their immigration stories, they reflect on what it means to maintain family ties in a Western society.
Content Warning:
. Coarse Language
. Brief Mentions and References to Sexual Assault
. Mentions of War
GRANDMA. GANGSTA. GUERRILLA. IS A LOT of things at once—an ambitious but grounded debut from playwright Abi Padilla, a play that navigates historical trauma and familial dysfunction, and a work that finds humour and heart in the treacherous terrain of both. – The Stir
Abi Padilla’s “Grandma. Gangsta. Guerilla.” Offers a Well-Knit Story, Brimming with Action-Packed Levity –The Vancouver Arts Review
Playwright and actor Abi Padilla strives for authentic Filipino cultural, linguistic, and historical vibe in Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla.- Charlie Smith, Pancouver
Padilla’s sense of humor and capacity to articulate multiple, coherent storylines is undeniably impressive. –The Vancouver Arts Review.
There is a lot to love about “Grandma. Gangsta. Guerilla.” and it appears poised to make waves with its outstanding production design and talented, all-Asian cast. –The Vancouver Arts Review.
GRANDMA. GANGSTA. GUERRILLA. IS A LOT of things at once—an ambitious but grounded debut from playwright Abi Padilla, a play that navigates historical trauma and familial dysfunction, and a work that finds humour and heart in the treacherous terrain of both. –The Vancouver Arts Review.
A fast-moving mix of wartime recollection, immigrant dramedy, and musical interludes, the Ruby Slippers Theatre premiere (in association with Blackout Art Society, the Shadbolt Centre, and Presentation House Theatre) still keeps its tender moments at its core. –The Vancouver Arts Review.
The production moves fast, with breaking-news interludes weaving together Philippine history and the Vancouver gang subplot. –The Vancouver Arts Review.
it is loud, funny, and full of heart, anchored by a family dynamic that feels real in all its chaos. –The Vancouver Arts Review.
In its complex simplicity, Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. poignantly reminds us that if trauma is passed down, so is resilience. –The Vancouver Arts Review.
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts showtimes:
Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, at 2 pm
Saturday, Feb 8, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Presentation House Theatre showtimes:
Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, at 2 pm
Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, at 7:30 pm
Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, at 2 pm
Shadbolt Centre for the Arts
6450 Deer Lake Ave, Burnaby
Box Office Hours
Tuesday-Friday: 12-5 pm
Saturday: 12-4 pm
Sunday and Monday: Closed
Box office opens 1 hour 30 minutes prior to scheduled performances.
Acceptable payment methods: Visa, Mastercard, Amex, cash, debit
Note: Visa and Mastercard debit not accepted.
Presentation House Theatre Box Office:
By Phone
Please call our Box Office at 1-604-990-3474
We accept Visa and MasterCard. There is no booking fee for phone purchases.
Box Office Hours
Our Box Office is open from 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM, Tuesday to Friday, and one hour before show time. Show dates, times and ticket prices vary.
Tickets will not be reserved without payment. We accept VISA, MasterCard, Debit and Cash (American Express is accepted for online sales only). Group pricing is available at a discount. Please contact our Box Office at 1-604-990-3474 for pricing.
Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla.
by Abi Padilla
Director: Leslie Dos Remedios
Featuring:
Yorlene Bernido – Nika
Evelyn Chew – Commander Lumen and Ensemble
Kevin Nguyen – Nurse Chaz, Andi Martin and Ensemble
Abigail Padilla – Basyang
Vince Sendrijas – Jun-Jun, Filipino Radio Reporter
Raugi Yu – Boss Mayhem, Pedro
Terrence Zhou – Ken, Captain Manaka
Apprentice Director: Isaac Li
Set Design: Kimira Reddy
Lighting Design: Jonathan Kim
Projection Design: Andie Lloyd
Sound Design: Riley Hardwick
Music Director and Composer: Argel Monte de Ramos
Projection Co-Designers: Ronnie Cheng and June Hsu
Fight Directors and Intimacy Choreographers: Nathania Bernabe and Jackie T. Hanlin, Affair of Honor
Fight Captain: Terrence Zhou
Music Captain: Vince Sendrijas
Props Design: Heidi Wilkinson
Costume Design: Sarah Sosick
TD/PM: Nico Dicecco
Stage Manager: Jennifer Wilson
Apprentice Stage Manager: Vicki Santos
RST thanks the North Vancouver Recreation and Culture Centre for their generous support.
Ruby Slippers Theatre in association with The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Playwrights Guild of Canada present The Advance Theatre Festival: Advancing the Radically Inclusive Stage. Five Staged Readings over Five Days. The festival showcases new works written and directed by female identifying and gender non conforming artists who also identify as IBPOC.
All tickets $15.00. Please contact the Box Office if you require accessible seating or have ticketing or subscription questions. 604.205.3000. No refunds on tickets. $2.00 fee per ticket for exchanges.
ATF 2025 curated by Gavan Cheema and Diane Brown.
Monday, January 27, 2025
Playwright/Director: Sarvin Esmaeili
Dramaturg: elika mojtabai
Actors:
Pariya Zabihi
Donia Cash
Kian Esmaeili
Bahareh Poureslami
Panta Mosleh
What’s your relationship with your body hair?
Welcome to Hair Hair everywhere, where we meet Shabnam’s head hair, armpit hair and leg hair! Through shadow puppetry, sound scores, spoken word in Farsi & English, this experimental comedic play tries to question the beauty standards, the roots of anti-body hair culture, and ways we can embrace Persian Femme bodies. Should Shabnam shave or not?
Poster designed by: Kian Esmaeili
Artist photo credits to Alger Liang
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Sarvin is a queer multidisciplinary theatre artist; healer, actor, poet, puppeteer and storyteller. Sarvin graduated from Studio 58’s acting program in 2020. Since then, they have been acting and creating theatre in local companies like Greenthumb (The Mixolydian 2023), Rice & Bean (Maman do you love me? 2022), Rumble (Menat Style 2021) and Blackout Theatre (STAND 2022 Festival Organizer). They have done many playwriting cohorts such as Arts Club’s LEAP, Frank Theatre’s Telling it Bent, and PTC’s Block A. In June 2023, Sarv acted and puppeteered at the International Theatrical VALISE Festival in Lomza, Poland.Sarv is passionate to normalize societal taboos like femme body hair, expectations around sex, cultural clashes, and intergenerational maternal healing. As a bilingual artist, Sarv loves experimenting with English and Farsi where bilingual thinking is more included on western stages.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Playwright: Damion Le Claire
Director: Cameron Peal
Dramaturge: Hailey Conner
Actors:
Kassandra Sison
Ashley Donahue
Join us for a reading of the play ‘Rougarou’. Based on the Métis legend that originated on Turtle Island centuries ago, Renee is plagued with memories of their missing and potentially murdered sister along the roads of Highway 16. Renee has never stopped looking for his beloved sister since the day she was taken but now a menacing figure at the edge of the wood stalks Renee … watching…waiting. Will Renee find his missing sister or will they fall victim to the same fate? Sometimes family can find you even in the darkest of times.
Min 15 years +.
Content warning: Rougarou contains extreme, graphic, historical and contemporary violence and disturbing content. Restricted to ages 15+.
Damion is an award-winning Métis and Two Spirit multi-disciplinary artist, located on the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Nations. Damion was one of forty Indigenous artists across “Canada” to be awarded Native Earth Performing Arts’ 40 Seeds for 40 Seasons. Damion was also the recent recipient of the Bill Millerd Artist Fund 2023 (Arts Club). Past credits include: Our Town (Peninsula Productions); Juggle Me Not (Axis Theatre and Wandering Wagon); Old Man Little Man, Blue Stockings, A Chorus Line, The Kitchen (Studio 58), Th’owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish B.C. and Alberta tour; CITY NDN LUV (Savage Society/Full Circle: First Nations Performance); Braiding Peonies (Rumble Theatre/TODOS); and They Know Not What They Do (Native Earth Performing Arts). Damion is currently represented by Kim Barsanti at Lucas Talent.
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Written by: Kate Besworth, Co-created with
Co-director: Ming Hudson, Co-director: Charlie Gallant
and Co-Creators: Kaitlyn Yott, Olivia Hutt, Agnes Tong, Baraka Rahmani
Actors:
Olivia Hutt
Arggy Jenati
Sian Spiller-Tisserand
Agnes Tong
Luc Roderique
From this Side of the End is a collaboratively-created play about four young people making their way across the Canadian landscape and facing almost every apocalyptic event possible (floods, fires, earthquakes, acid rain, zombies, etc) on their way to safety. The piece asks incisive questions about the world that they have left behind, and offers imaginings for what we can all,seek to create in our future world together. It is a sobering, candid, and hopeful look at starting again, especially the way in which community love plays a necessary part in the rebirth of our societies.
*READING OF PLAY ONLY*
Content Warning: From This Side of the End contains subject matter that include: climate disaster, nuclear disaster, pandemics, physical violence and sexual assault. No sexual assault occurs onstage.
Kate Besworth (she/her) is a theatre creator, performer, and writer living on the unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-waututh people. Kate has performed leading roles across Canada, from Mirvish to the Shaw Festival, and from MTC to Bard on the Beach. Recently, Kate was commissioned to write Done/Undone, Bard on the Beach’s first feature film, about the relevance of Shakespeare in our current world. Playwright for ANTIGONE, Two Planks and a Passion, 2023 season; a one-woman show commission from Shakespeare in the Ruins, 2024 season; Done/Undone, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, 2024 season.
Ming Hudson (co-director)
Ming is a Vancouver based artist who pays rent on the lands stolen from the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. For almost 20 years, she has worked as a freelance performer, devised theatre creator, collaborative director, independent producer, and teaching artist on the west coast, nationally, and internationally. Her specialisations are in physical theatre and the creation of new work as a collective ensemble. A graduate of the Advanced Devising Practice program at LISPA (now arthaus.berlin), Ming also holds a MA in Ensemble Theatre (Rose Bruford), and a BFA in Acting (UVic).
Ming has worked for Bard on the Beach, The Arts Club, UBC, Chemainus Theatre Festival, UVic, CCPA, Dell’Arte International, Gwaandak Theatre, TheatreOne, Two Planks and a Passion, Studio 58, Green Thumb Theatre, Theatre Replacement, Atomic Vaudeville, The Firehall, Boca del Lupo, Concrete Theatre, and Kaleidoscope Theatre. In addition, she has created ten new independent productions, which have been performed in five different countries.
Charlie Gallant (co-director)
Charlie is best known as an actor with 8 seasons at Bard On The Beach, 4 at The Shaw Festival, 2 at Stratford, and multiple performances at The Arts Club, Rumble, Greenthumb, Ruby Slippers, Mitch & Murray, Belfry, Citadel, RMTC, and more; voice-over work on Paw Patrol: the Movie and Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off; and film/tv such as Percy Jackson & The Olympians, Good Witch, Fringe, and Murdoch Mysteries. Charlie is also a skilled and passionate acting coach, director, dramaturge, musician/composer, and photographer who is grateful to collaborate with this team to create new and inspiring theatre. Training: Studio 58, MacIlroy & Associates.
Kaitlyn Yott (Co-Creator)
Kaitlyn Yott (she/they) is a Queer mixed Nisga’a, Gitxsan, Nikkei Kanadajin and European Settler performer and storyteller. She has been an active participant in the resurgence of Indigenous Storytelling through the lens of Canadian Theatre. Her proudest credits to date are originating the role of Mikaya in Kim Senklip Harvey’s Kamloopa, and is currently in development, playing the role of Scarlett in Kim Senklip Harvey’s Break Horizons: A Rocking Indigenous Justice Ceremony. She has recently made a shift into Film and Television, having recently booked Principle and Leading roles on both the CW and Dreamworks. She is thankful to her team of mentors, family and friends who keep her driven to create safe storytelling practices for the current and following generations.
Olivia Hutt (Co-Creator)
Olivia Hutt is a Canadian actor living in Vancouver. She is honoured to play and engage as a settler on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. As a theatre artist she has worked for companies such as Bard on The Beach, ITSAZOO Productions, The Cultch, Green Thumb Theatre and YPT- A Jessie Richardson Award winner, a collaborator, dramaturg, and lover of constructively decolonizing theatre today.
Baraka Rahmani (Co-Creator)
Baraka (She/Her) is an Arab-Canadian actor who moved to Vancouver from Jordan in 2010 to pursue her BFA in performance at Simon Fraser University. She has since performed on renowned stages across the country including The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, The Arts Club, and The Grand Theatre Film credits include Incendies (Denis Villeneuve), Slasher (Adam MacDonald) and The Alleys (Bassel Ghandour).
Agnes Tong (Co-Creator)
Agnes Tong was born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario but now calls Vancouver home. The West Coast mountains and fresh air persuaded Agnes to stay after she graduated Studio 58 theatre school. Before Studio 58, Agnes was working as a professional dancer on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, B.A.D. dance company in San Francisco, and freelancing in Toronto. Some of her favourite theatre credits include: carried away on the crest of a wave, The Great Leap, The Shoplifters, King Charles III, 4000 Miles (Arts Club Theatre), The Ones We Leave Behind (VACT), and Kim’s Convenience (Chemainus Theatre). Some film and tv highlights include: The Good Doctor (ABC), Under Wraps (Disney), Charmed (CW), and The Romeo Section (CBC).
Playwright: Faly Mevamanana
Director: Arthi Chandra
Dramaturg: Katerina Bakolias
Actors:
Jessie Liang
Sharon Crandall
Ingrid Moore
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Sugar. Salt. Sabotage.
Grace lives the perfect life, but something is missing. When her first attempt to claim the title of Great Canadian Baker fails, she spirals into obsession. Soon enough, she’s trapped in a pit of her own deception and turns to the one thing she has left…sabotage.
This satirical story examines what it is to have a ‘white whale’ in the era of social media and reality TV. It explores the price we pay for chasing idyllic dreams into obsession, and the harsh reality that the hardest worker is not always successful.
Faly is an award-nominated actor, singer, and writer. Since graduating from the Randolph College for the Performing Arts, she has performed in seven provinces across Canada and been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for individual performance. Some of her favourite theatre credits include The Dreamcatchers at The Charlottetown Festival, playing the title role in Alice In Pantoland at Neptune Theatre, Grease with Western Canada Theatre, and starring as Juno in Juno’s Reward at the Grand Theatre. Offstage, she was a writing shadow on This Hour Has 22 Minutes and served as the Program Associate for Write From the Hip with Nightwood Theatre. In 2023, she participated in a year-long comedy writing mentorship with Allana Reoch (Strays, Kim’s Convenience). She is the Shorts Programmer for the Gender Equity in Media Festival, and a facilitator with Out In Schools and Reel Canada. As a queer mixed-race creator, Faly is passionate about telling stories which showcase marginalized voices in a joyful way. She is particularly interested in female driven comedy stories, centering on the power of chosen family.
Friday, January 31, 2025
Director and Playwright: Carmen Aguirre
Dramaturge: Elaine Avila
Actors:
Yoshie Bancroft
Katie Voravong
Katie Schram
Chelsea Rose
Nimet Kanji
Mason Temple
Sebastien Archibald
Join us for a reading of the play “The Consent Club”, an adaptation of Moliere’s The Learned Ladies. Set on a North American university campus, this satire about zealotry, hypocritical puritanism, and sexual paranoia follows our horny heroine Anita as she tries to get laid at the height of the #MeToo movement. Told from the lens of a Latina socialist feminist who is a refugee and a survivor of childhood rape, this controversial and hilarious play takes on the essentialization of women as victims and men as predators.
Content Warning:
This play is inappropriate for folks under the age of seventeen. If it were a movie, it’d be rated R. Graphic sexual language throughout.
Photo by Emily Cooper.
Carmen Aguirre is a Chilean-Canadian award-winning theatre artist and author. She is an Electric Company Theatre Core Artist and has written and co-written over twenty-five plays and the #1international bestseller Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter (2012 CBC Canada Reads winner), and its bestselling sequel, Mexican Hooker #1 and My Other Roles Since the Revolution. Her new play Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project will premiere in the 25/26 season in Vancouver. She has three other plays in development across Canada. Carmen has over eighty film, television, and stage acting credits, including her Leo-nominated lead role in the independent Feature Bella Ciao!, a series regular on the showtime series Endgame, and memorable roles in Riverdale, the Sundance-winning feature film Quinceanera, and Best In Show. She can currently be seen in Family Law as Victor Garber’s ex-wife and rival lawyer, and in the upcoming season six of Virgin River playing a colleague of Doc’s. She is the recipient of the 2011 UBCP Lorena Gale Woman of Distinction Award, the 2014 Betty Mitchell Award for her outstanding theatre performance in The Motherfucker With The Hat, and was named one of the 10 Most Influential Hispanic Canadians by the Canadian Hispanic Business Alliance in 2014. Carmen is a graduate of Studio 58. Carmenaguirre.ca
Photo by Nancy Caldwell. Auora Chan and Dan Tait Brown in Home Deliveries. Directed by Diane Brown.
From the people who brought you RST’s smash hit I Lost My Husband
A United Players Production in Association with Ruby Slippers Theatre. Translation commissioned by Ruby Slipper Theatre.
Violet is on mat leave. Florence is on sick leave. Both of them are moms, tied to their young children by invisible wires of steel… while their spouses barely notice they’re alive. These two bored, abandoned and dissatisfied women join forces to fight back in the most hilarious way possible: by going on a mission to seduce a string of lovers… all without walking out the front door.
An English language premiere of Deux Femmes en or. in English language translation commissioned by Ruby Slippers Theatre.
Photo Credit: Dan Tait Brown, Stefania Indelicato, Aurora Chan, Daniel Martin and Alina Quarin for Home Deliveries. Photos by Nancy Caldwell.
Production Info
Home Deliveries
by Catherine Léger, translated by Leanna Brodie
Director: Diane Brown
Set Design: Heipo Leung
Costume Design: Sarah Sosick
Assistant to the Costume Designer Designer: Danielle Morrison
Lighting Design: Christian Ching
Sound Design: Hannah Dumez
Performers
Aurora Chan
Stefania Indelicato
Daniel Martin
Dan Tait Brown
Alina Quarin
