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Stage Left Productions

Stage Left Productions is a grassroots, popular theatre company of "diverse artists/catalysts of change who create pathways to systemic equity in and through the arts" (Stage Left website), significantly contributing to the Disability Arts movement (Johnston 15,21). Based in Calgary, Alberta, Stage Left was founded in 1999 and incorporated in 2003 by Michele Decottignies, the founding artistic director. The Company's diverse programming includes original production, commissions, presenting, training, advocacy, and professional development for still-marginalized artists (Stage Left website).

Stage Left has developed an interdisciplinary and intersectional theatre practice that fuses political theatre, popular theatre, and verbatim techniques with disability justice and decolonizing tactics (Johnston 31). Its germinal award-winning play Mercy Killing or Murder: The Tracy Latimer Story (2003), based on a real Canadian crime, was co-created with artists with developmental disabilities and innovated disability aesthetics (Johnston 107, 173). The Company has since produced more than twenty Disability Arts productions, including Notwithstanding: 100 Years of Eugenics in Alberta (2005); Same Difference (2008); Time to Put My Socks On, a co-production with Alan Shain (2010); Women’s Work, featuring four tenth anniversary commissions (2013); Closet Freaks (2023); and The Le Crip Teases Cabaret (2024).

Stage Left also produced ten annual disability arts festivals called Balancing Acts (2002-2009), The festival featured international artists such as Mat Fraser, and homegrown talent (some commissioned, as with JD Derbyshire’s Funny in the Head and Rachel da Silveira Gorman's Pass), presenting over one thousand diverse, disabled artists. It was the longest-running event of its kind.

Endorsed by Augusta Boal in 2005, Stage Left is also a Global Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed, collaborating with still marginalized communities and non-profit organizations to effect both personal and societal transformation. The Company has run over three hundred Theatre of the Oppressed workshops to date (Stage Left website). Notable partnerships include The Disability Action Hall (turning popular theatre into public protest); The Alberta Council for Global Cooperation (engaging rural Albertans in global citizenship); Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe's Indigenous Health Initiatives (training health care professional in Indigenous Health equity): and the Autism Aspergers Friendship Society (immersing youth on the spectrum in arts-based social justice).

Further, as an advocacy effort, the Company initiated the Deaf, Disability and Mad Arts Alliance of Canada, “a collective of long-established, disability-identified artists who came together in 2012" (Decottignies).

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Stage Left became artist-in-residence at the Cumming School of Medicine's Indigenous, Local and Global Health Office, merging health equity advocacy and applied Forum Theatre Techniques. In 2023, the company celebrated twenty years with "Step Right Up!" a practice-focused disability theatre symposium for inclusive non-disabled theatre producers. Presented digitally, the conference celebrated Canadian disability arts “firsts,” and with presentations by Michele Decottignies, Adam Grant Warren, Lyle Victor Albert, Ruth Stackhouse, and more, closing with a sneak peep of The Crip Teases Cabaret. Post pandemic Stage Left toured The Crip Teases Cabaret, launching Step Right Up! Digital Showcase, and producing Mataxis, a Legislative Theatre Assembly for Truth and Reconciliation.

A group of five people is gathered indoors, seemingly in a casual or rehearsal setting. Charlene Hellson sits on the left, wearing a red headscarf and purple jacket, watching the interaction. Stacy da Silva, in a tan hoodie, stands in the center, looking down and engaging with a seated medical student in a blue hoodie who is holding a folder or papers. Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe stands in the background, observing or participating in the discussion, while Michele Decottignies, in a red hoodie with short blond hair, stands nearby. The mood appears focused and collaborative.
The Whole Story: using Forum Theatre to teach Indigenous health (2003). L to R: Charlene Hellson, Stacy da Silva, Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe, Michele Decottignies, and a medical student.

Sources:

Balancing Acts Website August 21, 2014. http://balancing-acts.org.

Decottignies, Michele. “Disability Arts and Equity in Canada.” Canadian Theatre Review 165 (2016): 43-47.

Johnston, Kirsty. Stage Turns: Canadian Disability Theatre. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012.

Stage Left Productions. Website. February 24 2023. https://stageleftists.weebly.com

Step Right Up!. Website. February 17, 2024. https://steprightup.weebly.com

Profile by Rebecca Burton

Last updated 2024-11-05