Our Work
Did I Just Say That?
Dare to Dream aria from Did I Just Say That?, featuring mezzo soprano Emma Parkinson, soprano Sodam Lee, and pianist Perri Lo. Music video produced by re:Naissance Opera.
L-R: Soprano Eva Tavares as Cecilia, and Canadian-Asian Mezzo-Soprano Emma Parkinson as Gabriella in
Did I Just Say That?
In the Shadow of the Mountains
Update: July 26, 2024
Join us for a staged reading of the latest draft of Valerie’s script, following an extensive development workshop with a full company of actors, designers, and cultural consultants in residence at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre.
Sunday, July 28, 2024
4:30pm PT
Staged Reading + Talkback
Livestreamed + In-Person: no admission charge
Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre
950 41st Avenue West
Jewish Community Centre, Vancouver
RSVP NOW!
Headlined by a fabulous and entirely BIPOC cast – David Geary, Donna Yamamoto*, Justin Neal, Kim Villagante, Lissa Neptuno*, Ray Koh, Ronin Wong*, Sarah Kelley*, Sunny (Daydream) Chen*, Yumi Ogawa* – the presentation may (or may not?!) also include a few design elements coming out of our about-to-begin Design Jam explorations with Anju Singh (composer/sound design), Cande Andrade (projection design), and Chengyan Boon (set/lighting design).
We invite you to come and witness a unique phase of our creative and collaborative process, and take advantage of the opportunity to pose questions to the playwright and other members of the company during the post-show talk-back. Our thanks to Ray Thunderchild* for his contributions as actor to the first few days of our workshop process!
Valerie Sing Turner* - Playwright/Director
April Starr Land* - Stage Manager
Jessica Schacht - Dramaturg
Paige Louter - Producer
Daryl Cloran - Directing Mentor
Xwechtaal (Dennis Joseph) - Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Elder/Cultural Consultant
Catherine Clement - Community Historian (Chinese Canadians during WWII)
Sherri Kajiwara - Director | Curator, Nikkei National Museum
Maiko Behr - Japanese Cultural Consultant
We are beyond grateful to Jessica Mann Gutteridge and Holly Karpuik, who have been unparalleled hosts during our residency at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre; and to Janice Beley for taking such good care of us during the text workshopping sessions at SFU Woodward's. We also want to thank the Canada Council and BC Arts Council, without whose funding support this workshop would not have been possible, as well as acknowledge Théâtre la Seizième for providing some gear and materials.
Synopsis: It’s 1988. A family gathers to discuss what to do about Esther, a Chinese-Canadian WWII veteran, as they can no longer ignore her growing dementia. She keeps talking to Victor, her beloved brother, whose death she blames on the Japanese when he served in the Pacific arena during World War II. Her husband George, an Indigenous WWII veteran, was Victor’s best friend; they had all joined up full of dreams and adventure. Their son, Gary, arrives with his white wife and their daughter Lucy. Things are already tense when estranged eldest daughter Nancy shows up with husband Ken and their two daughters – who have never met Esther and George because Ken is Japanese-Canadian and Esther refuses to acknowledge his existence. But the real fireworks begin when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney announces his plan to apologize to the Japanese Canadians who were interned during WWII. In the Shadow of the Mountains ponders the true meaning of reconciliation when the weight of Canadian history threatens to tear us apart.