Cliff Cardinal

Last updated

Cliff Cardinal is a Canadian actor, playwright and songwriter, [1] known for his one-man show The Land Acknowledgement, or As You Like It. [2]

Contents

Early life

The son of actress Tantoo Cardinal, he was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and grew up in Toronto and Los Angeles as his mother pursued her career in both Canada and the United States. [2] He had early acting roles in productions such as Michael Hollingsworth's The Saskatchewan Rebellion [3] and Kenneth Williams's Three Little Birds, and made his debut as a playwright with Stitch at the 2009 Rubaboo Performance Gala in Edmonton. [4]

Theatre career

In 2011, Stitch was staged at the SummerWorks Theatre Festival, [5] where Cardinal won the Theatre Passe Muraille Emerging Artist Award, and Cara Gee won Best Actress for her performance in the lead role. [6]

He first became widely known in 2012 for his one-man show Huff, which examined the issue of drug and solvent abuse in indigenous communities. [7] Following a February 2016 production of Huff by Native Earth Performing Arts, Cardinal won Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding New Play, Independent Theatre and Outstanding Male Performance, Independent Theatre, at the 2016 Dora Awards. [8]

After Huff and Stitch were published together in book form, Cardinal was a nominee in the Alternative Format category at the 2018 Indigenous Voices Awards. [9]

In 2019 his play Too Good to Be True, inspired in part by his relationship with his mother, premiered at Toronto's VideoCabaret theatre. [10] It was the first play ever staged by the company in its new Busy St. theatre, and one of the first times the company staged a play by anybody but Hollingsworth and Deanne Taylor. [10] In 2019 and early 2020, he toured the variety show Cliff Cardinal's CBC Special, in which he performed a mixture of short acting monologues, storytelling and music. [11]

The Land Acknowledgement

In 2021, Cardinal debuted Shakespeare's As You Like It: A Radical Retelling at the Crow's Theatre in Toronto. [12] Advertised as an indigenous-themed adaptation of William Shakespeare's As You Like It , the play actually featured no Shakespearean content at all, and instead consisted entirely of Cardinal performing a monologue on Indigenous Canadian political issues through the framework of a satirical land acknowledgement nominally preceding the Shakespeare play that wasn't really being performed. [12] Cardinal later explained that the bait and switch tactic was chosen because he wanted to avoid "preaching to the converted", and instead wanted the monologue to hit harder by virtue of being unexpected and surprising. [2] To that end, he also concluded each show by asking the audience not to reveal the trick to people who had not yet seen the show. [12]

In 2022, Cardinal undertook a national tour of the show, including runs in Vancouver, [13] Edmonton [14] and Peterborough. [15] Cardinal received dual Dora nominations at the 2022 awards, for Best Leading Performer, General Theatre and Best Original Play, General Theatre. [16] The play was also published in book form, and was a shortlisted Trillium Book Award nominee for English prose in 2023. [17]

The play received a new production by Mirvish Productions at the CAA Theatre in 2023, although it was retitled The Land Acknowledgement, or As You Like It as Mirvish did not permit Cardinal to use the "bait and switch" marketing tactic. [18]

The play's print publication won the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2023 Governor General's Awards. [19] [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Reid</span> Canadian actress

Fiona Reid, CM is an English-born Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles as Cathy on the TV series King of Kensington (1975-1978) and as Harriet Miller in the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raoul Bhaneja</span> Canadian actor and musician

Raoul Bhaneja is an English-Canadian actor, musician, writer and producer.

Stephanie Marie Toscano DiDomenicantonio, also known as Steffi D, is a Canadian singer and actress, who first rose to prominence as a fifth-place finalist on the fourth season of Canadian Idol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Richards</span> Canadian writer

David Christopher Richards, best known as Christopher Richards is a Canadian playwright, theatre designer and casting director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirvish Productions</span> Canadian theatrical production company

Mirvish Productions, commonly known as Mirvish, is a Canadian theatrical production company, based in Toronto. Founded in 1986 by David Mirvish with his father, Ed Mirvish, it is the largest commercial theatre company in Canada. Mirvish Productions own and operate four theatres in the downtown Toronto area: the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Princess of Wales Theatre, Ed Mirvish Theatre, and the CAA Theatre.

The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in Toronto theatre.

The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play/Musical is an annual award celebrating achievements in Toronto theatre.

The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Production of a Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in live Canadian theatre.

Tawiah Ben M'Carthy is a Ghanaian-born Canadian actor and playwright. He is best known for his 2012 play Obaaberima, a one-man play about growing up gay in Ghana.

Dan Chameroy is a Canadian actor and singer, best known for his work in musical theatre. In 1995, he originated the role of Gaston in the Canadian premiere production of Beauty and the Beast at the Princess of Wales Theatre. Chameroy also originated the role of Miss Trunchbull in the Canadian premiere production of Matilda at the Ed Mirvish Theatre, and reprised the role in the show's first national tour. He has also co-created and performed as the character "Plumbum" at several Ross Petty pantomimes.

Amanda Jeannette Bridel, known as AJ Bridel, is a Canadian actress and singer. She first rose to prominence as a finalist on Over the Rainbow, where she finished in third-place. Since then, Bridel originated the role of Lauren in the Canadian premiere of Kinky Boots at the Royal Alexandra Theatre and has appeared in several regional productions across Ontario. In 2022, Bridel started voicing the main character Pipp Petals in the My Little Pony series.

Kate Hennig is a Canadian actress and playwright, currently the associate artistic director of the Shaw Festival.

Andrew Kushnir is a Canadian playwright and actor. He is most noted as co-creator with Damien Atkins and Paul Dunn of The Gay Heritage Project, a theatrical show dramatizing aspects of LGBT history which was shortlisted for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2014.

Room is a play with songs based on the 2010 novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue, which was also adapted into a 2015 film of the same name. It tells the story of Ma, who was kidnapped as a teenager and locked inside a room for seven years by her captor. Longing to find a way out and escape, Ma is trapped with her five-year-old son, Jack, who has no concept of the world outside.

Matthew MacKenzie is a Canadian playwright and actor. He is most noted as a two-time Dora Mavor Moore Award winner for Outstanding New Play, Independent Theatre, winning in 2018 for Bears and in 2023 for The First Métis Man of Odesa.

The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Independent Theatre is a Canadian theatre award, presented as part of the Dora Mavor Moore Awards to honour the year's best new play by a Canadian playwright which had its premiere in the Toronto theatre market in the previous year.

Gregory Prest is a Canadian actor, playwright and theatre director. He is most noted for his role as Simon in the comedy television series Pillow Talk, for which he and his castmates received an ensemble nomination for Best Performance in a Variety or Sketch Comedy Program or Series at the 11th Canadian Screen Awards in 2023, and as a Dora Mavor Moore Award winner for Best Direction in a Musical in 2019 for Soulpepper's musical Rose.

Hengameh E. Rice is the pen name of a playwriting duo from Edmonton, Alberta. They are most noted for their theatrical play Anahita's Republic.

Nancy Palk is a Canadian actress, most noted as one of the founding members of the Soulpepper theatre company.

Britta Johnson is a Canadian-American composer, lyricist, and playwright. She is best known for her musical, Life After.

References

  1. ↑ "How Cliff Cardinal's play tricked audiences into confronting Canada's relationship with Indigenous people". Q , March 23, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 Karen Fricker, "How Cliff Cardinal’s annoyance with land acknowledgments became a provocative piece of theatre". Toronto Star , March 15, 2023.
  3. ↑ Richard Ouzounian, "The past comes back to taunt us". Toronto Star , March 2, 2007.
  4. ↑ Liz Nicholls, "A multi-course meal in one pot; Theatre, spoken word and music share flavours in aboriginal variety show". Edmonton Journal , June 11, 2009.
  5. ↑ Robert Crew, "Cash well spent on family tales". Toronto Star , August 8, 2011.
  6. ↑ "SummerWorks hands out hardware". Toronto Star , August 8, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Solvent-abuse inspired Huff runs until Saturday". Saskatoon Star-Phoenix , June 19, 2013.
  8. ↑ Carly Maga, "Doras distribute the wealth among T.O.'s best: Canadian Opera big winner - with Siegfried taking five, La Traviata winning three". Toronto Star , June 28, 2016.
  9. ↑ Jane van Koeverden, "Indigenous Voices Awards, which recognize emerging Indigenous writers, reveal 2018 finalists". CBC Books, May 22, 2018.
  10. 1 2 Karen Fricker, "Too Good to Be True opens VideoCabaret's new theatre in promising form". Toronto Star , April 29, 2019.
  11. ↑ "Cliff Cardinal lightens up for solo variety show at High Performance Rodeo". Calgary Herald , January 10, 2020.
  12. 1 2 3 Glenn Sumi, "Review: Cliff Cardinal delivers a radical take on As You Like It". Now , October 2, 2023.
  13. ↑ "Five shows to see at the push international performing arts festival". Vancouver Sun , January 15, 2022.
  14. ↑ Liane Faulder, "A radical retelling; The Roxy launches with As You Like It adaptation shrouded in mystery". Edmonton Journal , April 23, 2022.
  15. ↑ Alex Schummer, "This is a new kind of Shakespeare: Cliff Cardinal's 'As You Like It' will be staged at Showplace Peterborough Sept. 22 and 23". Peterborough Examiner , September 13, 2022.
  16. ↑ Aisling Murphy, "Nomination Announcements: 42nd Annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards". Intermission Magazine, August 29, 2022.
  17. ↑ "MP Charlie Angus, poet Cliff Cardinal among Trillium Book Award nominees" Archived May 9, 2023, at the Wayback Machine . Toronto Star , May 9, 2023.
  18. ↑ Aisling Murphy, "Cliff Cardinal is a master of emotional manipulation in ‘The Land Acknowledgement, or As You Like It’". Toronto Star , March 15, 2023.
  19. ↑ "Anuja Varghese wins Governor General's literary award for fiction". Toronto Star , November 8, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Anuja Varghese's short story collection Chrysalis among $25K Governor General's Literary Award winners". CBC Books. CBC. November 8, 2023. Retrieved November 8, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.