In The Café’s virtual world, you can click anywhere on the floor to move, and drag your mouse to look in any direction. Click on people and objects that are highlighted when you hover over them to listen in on conversations and find other hidden items.  Be sure to see what The Café has on the menu, check out what pastries are available, and see what each customer has on their table.

Produced by Aphotic Theatre and ITSAZOO Productions
Online version produced in partnership with  RE/PLAY: The Cultch’s Digital Playground 
Created with support from the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.
Concept: Fay Nass
Direction: Fay Nass & Chelsea Haberlin
Dramaturgy: Fay Nass & Sebastien Archibald
Stage Management: Jenny Kim
Assistant Stage Manager: Liam Kearns
Production Management: Paige Louter
Associate Producer: Claire Love Wilson
Costumes: Donnie Tejani
Props and Digital Interaction Designer: Ariel Slack
Sound: Piotr Wieczorek
Virtual Tour Creator: Kris Boyd
Videographer and Editor: Cameron Anderson
Digital Production Support: Pippa Mackie

The Café is about our relationship to each other. After many years of isolation we can finally be part of intimate conversations again. The Cafe challenges form and subverts the relationship between audience and performers by encouraging you, the audience, to find your own way through the experience.  We invite you to sit close to the scenes you see playing out around you, or move around at your own pace.

In a time of great insecurity for artists, this project has been an opportunity for many diverse voices to gather and create an experience that is at times political, funny, intimate, sexual and ultimately human.

 Be curious, have fun, and challenge the way you see and experience theatre.

Chelsea Haberlin & Fay Nass 

Collaboration is at the heart of The Café. When Fay first approached ITSAZOO about this project, both of our companies were drawn to the concept of slice-of-life stories set in an actual coffee shop. This was a form that could embrace and celebrate potentially infinite intersections of story, language, community, relationship. The end result that you get to witness tonight is an experience brought to you by two theatre companies, two directors, three designers, nine playwrights, and fourteen actors, not to mention a production team of nine who makes sure the entire event runs smoothly and is marketed well.  

Like any piece of theatre,  the Café exists in the space between people, in a creative conversation between two indie theatre companies, between an actor and a playwright, a designer and a director. And now you, with your presence here tonight, are a collaborator; an individual piece of a whole; a small part of a larger system. Welcome to the team. Welcome to The Café!   

Fay, Sebastien & Paige

Aphotic Theatre & ITSAZOO Productions

Meghan Hemingway (Mango Cake)
Kwasi Thomas (Mango Cake)

Joey Lespérance (Father’s Day)
Ben Elliott (Father’s Day)

Chelsea Rose (50 Cent Lemonade)
Frankie Cottrell (50 Cent Lemonade)

Montserrat Videla Samper (Submission)
Jacqueline Korb (Submission)

Melissa Oei (Space Aliens and Tropical Ducks)
Alison Ward (Space Aliens and Tropical Ducks)

Genevieve Fleming (Anna’s Story)
Yumi Ogawa (Anna’s Story)

Paloma Kwiatkowski (Przyjaciółki)
Claire Love Wilson (Przyjaciółki)

Mango Cake
by Amy Lee Lavoie & Omari Newton

A mixed-race couple suddenly faces the underlying racial tension in their marriage.

Father’s Day
by Sebastien Archibald

An elderly francophone man struggles to reconcile with his anglophone son after a 25-year absence.

50 Cent Lemonade
by Kelsey Kanatan Wavey

An Indigenous woman guides her autistic brother through a tumultuous relationship.

Submission
by Fay Nass & Diana Garcia

In a case of mistaken identity, two women accidentally “interview” each other for the wrong (or right?) reasons.

Space Aliens and Tropical Ducks
by Derek Chan

A single parent attempts to reconnect with their depressive ex-partner.

Anna’s Story
by Manami Hara

Two best friends console each other in the face of a strained marriage and a family crisis.

Przyjaciółki
by Anais West

A Polish woman struggles to appease her Canadian partner after divulging an uncomfortable secret.

Amy Lee Lavoie & Omari Newton
Anais West
Derek Chan
Fay Nass & Diana Garcia
Kelsey Kanatan Wavey
Manami Hara

Sebastien Archibald

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Phone: 604-251-1363
Email: [email protected]