Straight White Men By Young Jean Lee
February 6th – 15th, 2020
The Gateway Theatre
Straight White Men is a hilarious and provocative examination of white privilege, liberal guilt, and the definitions of success within the capitalist rat race.
The play is hosted by two queer, gender nonconforming people of colour. Our hosts introduce us to Ed and his three adults sons who’ve come together to celebrate Christmas. The family enjoys cheerful trash-talking, pranks, and Chinese takeout peppered with a little casual homophobia, some light misogyny, and a dash of racism. But their holiday cheer is complicated by eldest brother Matt. Something is wrong with Matt. Once the alpha male, ivy league, pride of his family, Matt is now working a menial job for an NGO and staying with Ed for an indeterminate amount to time. Why isn’t he living up to his full potential? What happened when he was building homes for the poor in Ghana? And why is he so keen to vacuum?
Hot off its 2018 Broadway premiere, this marks the first Canadian production of Straight White Men and its Western Canadian premiere. Using a provocative framing device, and her trademark exploration of grappling with identity in the age of identity politics, Lee’s Straight White Men is a one-of-a-kind theatre experience. Our production will be co-directed by ITSAZOO’s Chelsea Haberlin and The Frank Theatre‘s Fay Nass.
Vancouver audiences first experienced Lee’s razor-sharp satire in SpeakEasy Theatre‘s award wining production of The Shipment. We’re eager to build upon Lee’s insightful explorations with our Talk Forward Series allowing audiences to engage much more deeply with the themes and ideas of the story. Each performance will be followed by a facilitated discussion with a guest speaker about the identities explored in the play: Straightness, Whiteness and Maleness.
Creative
Director: Chelsea Haberlin & Fay Nass
Choreographer: Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg
Set Design: Shizuka Kai
Lighting Design: Sophie Tang
Costume Design: Laura Fukumoto
Sound Design: Mary Jane Paquette
Props Assistant: Carol MacDonald
Associate Producer: Shanae Sodhi
Production Manager/Technical Director: Mimi Abrahams
Assistant Technical Director: Aiden Hammond
Stage Manager: Susan D. Currie
Assistant Stage Manager: Katie Voravong
Cast
Person in Charge 1: Kim Villagente
Person in Charge 2: Raven John
Ed: Peter Anderson
Matt: Daniel Martin
Jake: Carlo Marks
Drew: Sebastien Archibald
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