Michele Decottignies


Site Links: APN Home Catalogue Index List of playwrights List of plays Search for a play Create a profile/ Submit a play Submit changes to your profile or play or send us a photo Other on-line catalogues: Playwrights Development Centres of Canada The Dramatic Exchange International Centre for Women Playwrights La Ronde - Playwrights Ring Playwrights' Workshop Montreal Playmarket - New Zealand Playwrights Playwrights Guild of Canada Virtual Library & Bookstore Playwrights Canada Press New Theatre Publications (England) Samuel French Catalogue ProPlay (British Columbia) Victorian Drama League (Australia) Dramatists Play Service (USA) Play Bureau (New Zealand) Theatrebooks (Toronto) Playscripts Inc. (USA) Find a play.com (USA)	Michele Decottignies Jump to list of plays Michele is a Calgary based producer, presenter, director, and writer. She is one of Calgary's most accomplished Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) facilitators, having been using TO in her arts-based community development practice over a decade now. Over the past three years, Michele has received funding from national and provincial arts supporters to continue her professional artist-community collaboration; she was one of only eight people to take a Master Class in Theatre of the Oppressed techniques with David Diamond (Headlines Theatre); her work with the disability community was featured on the CBC National TV program "Moving On" and on Pyramid Production's "The Criminal Mind". She co-edited the Spring, 2005 issue of "Canadian Theatre Review"; engages in Theater of the Oppressed work with many different communities at any given time; produces "Balancing Acts: Calgary's Annual Disability Arts Festival"; and teaches drama classes for people with disabilities. Michele has worked with Crazy Horse Theatre, One Yellow Rabbit, Theatre Calgary, Alberta Theatre Projects, and Lunchbox Theatre. She is currently a member of the Performance Creation Canada Steering Committee, and an active member of both the International Theater of the Oppressed organization and the International Guild of Disabled Artists and Performers. Selected plays In alphabetical order by title: Acting on Authority As I Am If Everybody Looked the Same...We'd Get Tired of Looking at Each Other Mercy Killing or Murder: The Tracy Latimer Story Notwithstanding School:System The Active Arts Series The Power Plays Series The Struggle is a Blessing The Third Generation The Whole Story: Reflections on Relationships What Did You Call Me? To request a copy of any of these plays please contact the playwright via email To inquire about performance rights for any of these plays please contact the playwright via email Acting on Authority by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama Number of Acts: One act Length: 45 mins Total actors required: 5 Men: 3 Women: 2 Synopsis: Join Kevin, Mike, Roland, Laura, and Adrienne, a community of street-involved youth, as they set out to discover why they are on the path they are on, and what needs to be done - by themselves and the system - to get back on track. Acting on Authority is an interdisciplinary exploration of their thoughts, stories, hopes, fears, and commitment to making the world a better place. Production History: July, 2000 at Lunchbox Theatre Produced by the Calgary John Howard Society s Group of the Youth Generation Return to list As I Am by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama Number of Acts: One act Length: 50 mins Total actors required: 11 (four with disabilities, the rest without) Men: 3 Women: 8 Synopsis: Freaks. Retards. Idiots... As I Am offers an historical deconstruction of attitudes toward people with disabilities over the past 200 years. From circus side show freaks to medical specimens to rats in a maze, watch as people with disabilities turn the tables on their dissection by telling the world to see them As I Am. Challenging drama, tango-esque dancing, personal stories, and a chorus of oppressors all provide insight into the lives of people with disabilities. Production History: Premiered at A Second Look at Disability Culture: Calgary's Second Annual Disability Arts Festival December 2002 in the Big Secret Theatre Produced by Calgary SCOPE Society and Stage Left Productions Presented by Stage Left Productions, Calgary SCOPE Society, and One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre. Return to list If Everybody Looked the Same...We'd Get Tired of Looking at Each Other by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama/Comedy Number of Acts: One act Length: 45 mins Total actors required: 7 (5 with disabilities, 2 without) Men: 5 Women: 2 Synopsis: If Everybody Looked the Same... We'd Get Tired of Looking at Each Other is a social satire of the experiences many people with disabilities have to suffer on a daily basis: negative attitues; government policy that keeps people living in poverty; group home staff who forget that they work for their clients; doctors who can't mind their own business; and a premier who just doesn't get it! Production History: April 2001 in the Secondary Reeve Theatre (University of Calgary) Produced by Calgary SCOPE Society Presented by the University of Calgary's Department of Drama Notes: The play was scripted in consultation with members of the Disability Action Hall, a social active collective of people with disabilities and their allies who advocate for social justice, who shared their personal stories as basis for the overall material. Return to list Mercy Killing or Murder: The Tracy Latimer Story by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama Number of Acts: One act Length: 50 mins Total actors required: 9 (four with disabilities, 5 without) Men: 6 Women: 3 Synopsis: On October 24, 1993, Robert Latimer took his young daughter's life. He thought about killing her for weeks and, after mulling over many options, he finally did kill her (by gassing her to death in the cab of his truck). He then put her body back in her bed and waited until she was found by his wife, Laura. He initially denied any involvement, telling his family and the police that Tracy died in her sleep. But after an initial investigation clearly pointed to homicide, Latimer freely admitted that he killed Tracy. Mercy Killing or Murder: The Tracy Latimer Story explores this controversial and timely topic. As medical ethics promises the elimination of disability and disease from our society, so too does it evoke concerns about eugenics and the elimination of difference and diversity among us. This play articulates the extreme positions taken during Robert Latimer's trial (and subsequent appeals) and offers up the voices that were seldom heard amidst the dialogue around this case: those of people with physical and developmental disabilities, just like Tracy. Production History: Premiered at Balancing Acts: Calgary's Third Annual Disability Arts Festival December 2003 in the Big Secret Theatre Produced by Stage Left Productions Co-presented by Stage Left Productions and One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre Notes: Mercy Killing or Murder was published in the Spring 2005 issue, on Theatre and Disability, of Canadian Theatre Review. Return to list Notwithstanding by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama/Comedy Number of Acts: One act Length: 60 mins Total actors required: 9 (four people with disabilities) Men: 4 Women: 5 Synopsis: Philosopher George Santayana said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This adage is appropriate in our current rush into the gene age , which has striking parallels to the eugenics movement of the early decades of the 20th century. Notwithstanding offers an interdisciplinary exploration of these parallels through an examination of Alberta s enthusiastic and unsurpassed eugenics practices over the past 100 years. This history is juxtaposed against the contemporary life stories of four Albertans who have disabilities. And a chilling prediction of the future brings us right back to where it all started. Production History: Produced by Stage Left Productions and funded by Alberta Lotteries Community Initiatives Program. Co-presented by Stage Left Productions and One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre in December, 2005, as the headliner of Balancing Acts: Calgary's Fifth Annual Disability Arts Festival, at the Big Secret Theatre. Return to list School:System by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama Number of Acts: One act Length: 25 mins Total actors required: 3 Men: 0 Women: 3 (two Aboriginal) Synopsis: School:System is a Forum Theatre exploration of how schools, and the systems that support them, can be more attentive to the needs of Aboriginal learners. Production History: March 9, 2005 at the Learning Together for Success - First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Conference in Calgary. Notes: Commissioned by Alberta Learning - Aboriginal Services Branch Manager, Donna Crowshoe, and the Calgary Region Consortia Dramaturgical support by Charlene Hellson, Cory Cardinal, and Stacy daSilva Return to list The Active Arts Series by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama/Comedy Number of Acts: One act Length: 90 mins Total actors required: 6 (all with disabilities) Men: 4 Women: 2 Synopsis: The Active Arts Series is a number of interactive Forum Theatre performances that encourage people with disabilities to advocate their concerns by using sociopolitical drama and social satire to speak out about social justice concerns. Developed and performed by people with developmental disabilities, Active Arts consists of three short plays: (1) The Seed in which a disabled volunteer is getting harassed by the staff and clients at the agency he supports; (2) The Bus Stop in which a disabled man gets harassed at a bus stop and takes his frustrations out on another person with a disability; and (3) A Wild Ride in which disabled people use travel as a metaphor for the ways in which power dynamics affect our day to day interactions. Production History: First produced by Stage Left Productions in July, 2003 in the Studio Theatre, University of Calgary. Toured Alberta throughout 2003 and 2004. A Wild Ride was performed at the Self-Advocacy Summit in Edmonton in September, 2004. Return to list The Power Plays Series by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama/Comedy Number of Acts: Three acts Length: 45 mins Total actors required: 6 (all with disabilities) Men: 3 Women: 3 Synopsis: Power Plays is a series of interactive Forum Theatre performances that encourage people with disabilities to advocate their concerns by using theater to speak out about social justice issues. Developed and performed by people with developmental disabilities, Power Plays consists of three short plays: (1) School Dayz in which a disabled girl is having trouble standing up to the classroom bully and to her unsupportive teacher; (2) The System in which a disabled young woman, seeking individualized funding, is having trouble standing up to the appeal board and to her guardian; and (3) The Protest in which disabled protesters try to persuade the government to spend some of its budgetary surplus on services and supports for disabled people. Production History: Produced by Calgary SCOPE Society Performed in March, 2000 at the Developmental Disabilities Resource Centre, December 2000 at the Amnesty International Arts Jam, and October, 2001 at the first Picture This... Disability Film Festival. Return to list The Struggle is a Blessing by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama/Comedy Number of Acts: One act Length: 30 mins Total actors required: 3 Men: 2 Women: 1 Synopsis: Three street-involved navigate their way through the revolving door of social services, offering improvements but silenced in the process. Production History: August, 2000 Produced by ActiveArts Theatre Alberta (now known as Stage Left Productions) Presented by the Yack Back Part II street-involved youth conference coalition. Return to list The Third Generation by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama Number of Acts: One act Length: 20 mins Total actors required: 15 - all Aboriginal Men: 7 Women: 8 Synopsis: An Image and Forum Theatre performance, The Third Generation brings to life stories from the generational consequences of the Residential School legacy and its impact on a First Nation. A sharing circle follows the Forum, where three generations are engaged in dialogue about how to continue the cycle of healing in a First Nations community. Production History: March, 2005 in Sturgeon Lake Cree First Nation Notes: Commissed by the Alberta Workplan Task Force (a component of the Centre for Excellence in Child Welfare). Dramaturgical support from members of the Journey Toward Empowerment Program Sturgeon Lake Cree First Nation Return to list The Whole Story: Reflections on Relationships by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama Number of Acts: One act Length: 25 mins Total actors required: 4 Men: 1 Women: 3 (two Aboriginal) Synopsis: The Whole Story: Reflections on Relationships is a Forum Theatre play written specifically to advance medical education and cultural competency. The Whole Story encourages first year medical learners, residents, and physicians to reflect on their attitudes toward Aboriginal populations and on how those attitudes might affect their clinical interaction with Aboriginal patients. The Forum presents cultural perspectives on tobacco, health care, and clinical interaction, encouraging medical participants to examine their own perspectives on these issues and how they might conflict with those of their Aboriginal patients. Production History: Produced by the Building Aboriginal Health Teaching and Learning Capacity Project (U of C Faculty of Medicine - Family Medicine) September 24, 2004 at Ghost River Rediscovery October 1, 2004 at U of A - Faculty of Medicine October 20, 2004 at U of C - Faculty of Medicine September 25 at Ghost River Rediscovery October 6, 2005 at U of A - Faculty of Medicine October 19, 2005 at U of C - Faculty of Medicine Notes: Commissioned by Dr. Linden (Lindsay) Crowshow, Co-Principle Investigator; Building Aboriginal Health Teaching and Learning Capacity Project Co-playwright: Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe Return to list What Did You Call Me? by Michele Decottignies Style: Drama/Comedy Number of Acts: One act Length: 60 mins Total actors required: 6 (5 with disabilities) Men: 4 Women: 2 Synopsis: What Did You Call Me? is Calgary's first Legislative Theatre project (at each performance, we engage in critical discussion of employment equity issues for people with disabilities; we collate the results of those discussions into a position paper that will be tabled in the Legislature and will, hopefully, evoke political action that will remedy these inequities). In What Did You Call Me? a group of people with disabilities, who have been contracted through a human service provider to work in the mail room of an oil company, believe that they are forming an advocacy group, the service provider threatens to suspend their employment contract. Despite coersion and threats, the advocacy group takes their concerns to the company's human resources manager, who tells them that he is within his rights to pay them less then minimum wage (because of an exemption clause in Alberta's Employment Standards Act). Finally the advocacy group takes their concerns directly to the Minister responsible for employment, where they are told that there is no way people with disability would ever get a job if employers had to pay them minimum wage or more. Production History: Produced by Stage Left Productions in December, 2004 at Balancing Acts: Calgary's Fourth Annual Disability Arts Festival (Big Secret Theatre). Performed on February 1, 2005 at the University of Calgary's Social Action day, March 9, 2005 at Reality Check Conference in Calgary, Ocober 2005, Red Deer, in support of Community Inclusion month. Return to list

Michele is a Calgary based producer, presenter, director, and writer. She is one of Calgary's most accomplished Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) facilitators, having been using TO in her arts-based community development practice over a decade now. Over the past three years, Michele has received funding from national and provincial arts supporters to continue her professional artist-community collaboration; she was one of only eight people to take a Master Class in Theatre of the Oppressed techniques with David Diamond (Headlines Theatre); her work with the disability community was featured on the CBC National TV program "Moving On" and on Pyramid Production's "The Criminal Mind". She co-edited the Spring, 2005 issue of "Canadian Theatre Review"; engages in Theater of the Oppressed work with many different communities at any given time; produces "Balancing Acts: Calgary's Annual Disability Arts Festival"; and teaches drama classes for people with disabilities.

Michele has worked with Crazy Horse Theatre, One Yellow Rabbit, Theatre Calgary, Alberta Theatre Projects, and Lunchbox Theatre. She is currently a member of the Performance Creation Canada Steering Committee, and an active member of both the International Theater of the Oppressed organization and the International Guild of Disabled Artists and Performers.

Selected plays
In alphabetical order by title:

Acting on Authority

As I Am

If Everybody Looked the Same...We'd Get Tired of Looking at Each Other

Mercy Killing or Murder: The Tracy Latimer Story

Notwithstanding

School:System

The Active Arts Series

The Power Plays Series

The Struggle is a Blessing

The Third Generation

The Whole Story: Reflections on Relationships

What Did You Call Me?

To request a copy of any of these plays please contact the playwright via email

To inquire about performance rights for any of these plays please contact the playwright via email

Acting on Authority
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 45 mins
Total actors required: 5
Men: 3
Women: 2

Synopsis:
Join Kevin, Mike, Roland, Laura, and Adrienne, a community of street-involved youth, as they set out to discover why they are on the path they are on, and what needs to be done - by themselves and the system - to get back on track. Acting on Authority is an interdisciplinary exploration of their thoughts, stories, hopes, fears, and commitment to making the world a better place.

Production History:
July, 2000 at Lunchbox Theatre
Produced by the Calgary John Howard Society s Group of the Youth Generation

Return to list

As I Am
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 50 mins
Total actors required: 11 (four with disabilities, the rest without)
Men: 3
Women: 8

Synopsis:
Freaks. Retards. Idiots... As I Am offers an historical deconstruction of attitudes toward people with disabilities over the past 200 years. From circus side show freaks to medical specimens to rats in a maze, watch as people with disabilities turn the tables on their dissection by telling the world to see them As I Am. Challenging drama, tango-esque dancing, personal stories, and a chorus of oppressors all provide insight into the lives of people with disabilities.

Production History:
Premiered at A Second Look at Disability Culture: Calgary's Second Annual Disability Arts Festival
December 2002 in the Big Secret Theatre
Produced by Calgary SCOPE Society and Stage Left Productions
Presented by Stage Left Productions, Calgary SCOPE Society, and One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre.

Return to list

If Everybody Looked the Same...We'd Get Tired of Looking at Each Other
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama/Comedy
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 45 mins
Total actors required: 7 (5 with disabilities, 2 without)
Men: 5
Women: 2

Synopsis:
If Everybody Looked the Same... We'd Get Tired of Looking at Each Other is a social satire of the experiences many people with disabilities have to suffer on a daily basis: negative attitues; government policy that keeps people living in poverty; group home staff who forget that they work for their clients; doctors who can't mind their own business; and a premier who just doesn't get it!

Production History:
April 2001 in the Secondary Reeve Theatre (University of Calgary)
Produced by Calgary SCOPE Society
Presented by the University of Calgary's Department of Drama

Notes:
The play was scripted in consultation with members of the Disability Action Hall, a social active collective of people with disabilities and their allies who advocate for social justice, who shared their personal stories as basis for the overall material.

Return to list

Mercy Killing or Murder: The Tracy Latimer Story
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 50 mins
Total actors required: 9 (four with disabilities, 5 without)
Men: 6
Women: 3

Synopsis:
On October 24, 1993, Robert Latimer took his young daughter's life. He thought about killing her for weeks and, after mulling over many options, he finally did kill her (by gassing her to death in the cab of his truck). He then put her body back in her bed and waited until she was found by his wife, Laura. He initially denied any involvement, telling his family and the police that Tracy died in her sleep. But after an initial investigation clearly pointed to homicide, Latimer freely admitted that he killed Tracy.

Mercy Killing or Murder: The Tracy Latimer Story explores this controversial and timely topic. As medical ethics promises the elimination of disability and disease from our society, so too does it evoke concerns about eugenics and the elimination of difference and diversity among us. This play articulates the extreme positions taken during Robert Latimer's trial (and subsequent appeals) and offers up the voices that were seldom heard amidst the dialogue around this case: those of people with physical and developmental disabilities, just like Tracy.

Production History:
Premiered at Balancing Acts: Calgary's Third Annual Disability Arts Festival
December 2003 in the Big Secret Theatre
Produced by Stage Left Productions
Co-presented by Stage Left Productions and One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre

Notes:

Mercy Killing or Murder was published in the Spring 2005 issue, on Theatre and Disability, of Canadian Theatre Review.

Return to list

Notwithstanding
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama/Comedy
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 60 mins
Total actors required: 9 (four people with disabilities)
Men: 4
Women: 5

Synopsis:
Philosopher George Santayana said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This adage is appropriate in our current rush into the gene age , which has striking parallels to the eugenics movement of the early decades of the 20th century.

Notwithstanding offers an interdisciplinary exploration of these parallels through an examination of Alberta s enthusiastic and unsurpassed eugenics practices over the past 100 years. This history is juxtaposed against the contemporary life stories of four Albertans who have disabilities. And a chilling prediction of the future brings us right back to where it all started.

Production History:
Produced by Stage Left Productions and funded by Alberta Lotteries Community Initiatives Program. Co-presented by Stage Left Productions and One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre in December, 2005, as the headliner of Balancing Acts: Calgary's Fifth Annual Disability Arts Festival, at the Big Secret Theatre.

Return to list

School:System
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 25 mins
Total actors required: 3
Men: 0
Women: 3 (two Aboriginal)

Synopsis:
School:System is a Forum Theatre exploration of how schools, and the systems that support them, can be more attentive to the needs of Aboriginal learners.

Production History:
March 9, 2005
at the Learning Together for Success -
First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Conference
in Calgary.

Notes:

Commissioned by Alberta Learning - Aboriginal Services Branch Manager, Donna Crowshoe, and the Calgary Region Consortia

Dramaturgical support by Charlene Hellson, Cory Cardinal, and Stacy daSilva

Return to list

The Active Arts Series

by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama/Comedy

Number of Acts: One act

Length: 90 mins

Total actors required: 6 (all with disabilities)

Men: 4

Women: 2

Synopsis:

The Active Arts Series is a number of interactive Forum Theatre performances that encourage people with disabilities to advocate their concerns by using sociopolitical drama and social satire to speak out about social justice concerns. Developed and performed by people with developmental disabilities, Active Arts consists of three short plays:

(1) The Seed in which a disabled volunteer is getting harassed by the staff and clients at the agency he supports;

(2) The Bus Stop in which a disabled man gets harassed at a bus stop and takes his frustrations out on another person
with a disability; and

(3) A Wild Ride in which disabled people use travel as a metaphor for the ways in which power dynamics affect our day to day interactions.

Production History:

First produced by Stage Left Productions in July, 2003 in the
Studio Theatre, University of Calgary.

Toured Alberta throughout 2003 and 2004.

A Wild Ride was performed at the Self-Advocacy Summit in Edmonton in
September, 2004.

Return to list

The Power Plays Series
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama/Comedy
Number of Acts: Three acts
Length: 45 mins
Total actors required: 6 (all with disabilities)
Men: 3
Women: 3

Synopsis:
Power Plays is a series of interactive Forum Theatre performances that encourage people with disabilities to advocate their concerns by using theater to speak out about social justice issues. Developed and performed by people with developmental disabilities, Power Plays consists of three short plays: (1) School Dayz in which a disabled girl is having trouble standing up to the classroom bully and to her unsupportive teacher; (2) The System in which a disabled young woman, seeking individualized funding, is having trouble standing up to the appeal board and to her guardian; and (3) The Protest in which disabled protesters try to persuade the government to spend some of its budgetary surplus on services and supports for disabled people.

Production History:
Produced by Calgary SCOPE Society
Performed in March, 2000 at the Developmental Disabilities Resource Centre, December 2000 at the Amnesty International Arts Jam, and October, 2001 at the first Picture This... Disability Film Festival.

Return to list

The Struggle is a Blessing
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama/Comedy
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 30 mins
Total actors required: 3
Men: 2
Women: 1

Synopsis:
Three street-involved navigate their way through the revolving door of social services, offering improvements but silenced in the process.

Production History:
August, 2000
Produced by ActiveArts Theatre Alberta (now known as Stage Left Productions)
Presented by the Yack Back Part II street-involved youth conference coalition.

Return to list

The Third Generation
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 20 mins
Total actors required: 15 - all Aboriginal
Men: 7
Women: 8

Synopsis:
An Image and Forum Theatre performance, The Third Generation brings to life stories from the generational consequences of the Residential School legacy and its impact on a First Nation. A sharing circle follows the Forum, where three generations are engaged in dialogue about how to continue the cycle of healing in a First Nations community.

Production History:
March, 2005 in Sturgeon Lake Cree First Nation

Notes:

Commissed by the Alberta Workplan Task Force (a component of the Centre for Excellence in Child Welfare).

Dramaturgical support from members of the Journey Toward Empowerment Program
Sturgeon Lake Cree First Nation

Return to list

The Whole Story: Reflections on Relationships
by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 25 mins
Total actors required: 4
Men: 1
Women: 3 (two Aboriginal)

Synopsis:
The Whole Story: Reflections on Relationships is a Forum Theatre play written specifically to advance medical education and cultural competency. The Whole Story encourages first year medical learners, residents, and physicians to reflect on their attitudes toward Aboriginal populations and on how those attitudes might affect their clinical interaction with Aboriginal patients. The Forum presents cultural perspectives on tobacco, health care, and clinical interaction, encouraging medical participants to examine their own perspectives on these issues and how they might conflict with those of their Aboriginal patients.

Production History:
Produced by the Building Aboriginal Health Teaching and Learning Capacity Project (U of C Faculty of Medicine - Family Medicine)

September 24, 2004 at Ghost River Rediscovery
October 1, 2004 at U of A - Faculty of Medicine
October 20, 2004 at U of C - Faculty of Medicine

September 25 at Ghost River Rediscovery
October 6, 2005 at U of A - Faculty of Medicine
October 19, 2005 at U of C - Faculty of Medicine

Notes:

Commissioned by Dr. Linden (Lindsay) Crowshow, Co-Principle Investigator; Building Aboriginal Health Teaching and Learning Capacity Project

Co-playwright: Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe

Return to list

What Did You Call Me?

by Michele Decottignies

Style: Drama/Comedy
Number of Acts: One act
Length: 60 mins
Total actors required: 6 (5 with disabilities)
Men: 4
Women: 2

Synopsis:

What Did You Call Me? is Calgary's first Legislative Theatre project (at each performance, we engage in critical discussion of employment equity issues for people with disabilities; we collate the results of those discussions into a position paper that will be tabled in the Legislature and will, hopefully, evoke political action that will remedy these inequities). In What Did You Call Me? a group of people with disabilities, who have been contracted through a human service provider to work in the mail room of an oil company, believe that they are forming an advocacy group, the service provider threatens to suspend their employment contract. Despite coersion and threats, the advocacy group takes their concerns to the company's human resources manager, who tells them that he is within his rights to pay them less then minimum wage (because of an exemption clause in Alberta's Employment Standards Act). Finally the advocacy group takes their concerns directly to the Minister responsible for employment, where they are told that there is no way people with disability would ever get a job if employers had to pay them minimum wage or more.

Production History:

Produced by Stage Left Productions in December, 2004 at Balancing Acts: Calgary's Fourth Annual Disability Arts Festival (Big Secret Theatre).

Performed on February 1, 2005 at the University of Calgary's Social Action day, March 9, 2005 at Reality Check Conference in Calgary, Ocober 2005, Red Deer, in support of Community Inclusion month.

Return to list

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Michele Decottignies