≈ 70 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: April 26, 2019
Artistic Director’s Notes
About fifteen years ago, Robert Chafe and I worked on a production that we kept saying was about death. We had experienced the deaths of several people close to us, and wanted to explore why it is that the ‘celebrations of life’ that we were attending felt so very neutral and ultimately empty. The ‘play about death’ we made wasn’t a successful one for us, though the artists involved put in a noble effort.
Environmentalist and scientist Jon Lien was concerned about the business of death too – namely in preventing it for the whales he saved. He also worked tirelessly to alleviate the burden on the environment and on the fishermen in whose nets the leviathans were caught. During our first run of the workshop production of Between Breaths in 2016, I watched the audience, as I often do. After the show, Robert said that we had finally made the show that says what we had always wanted to say about death. But watching the audience that night, I knew the play wasn’t about death at all, but about life; delicious, frightening, fierce and beautiful life, just like Jon Lien had lived it.
I hope you find joy in your introduction to, and our celebration of, the Whale Man.
Playwright’s Notes
I was recently asked what was different and challenging about writing this play. For sure I’ve written about real people in the past and the research process has taken me into people’s homes all across the province and beyond. I’ve sat and recorded people talking about loved ones, telling intimate stories about real lives that have come and gone, and I’ve been gobsmacked by the generosity and trust. The big difference with Between Breaths was the timing. I approached the Lien family with idea of writing this play back in 2012, a mere two years after Jon’s passing. Despite their still fresh grief, Judy, Elling and their family opened their doors and their hearts to me, as did Jon’s colleagues and friends. They all did so with the firm intent that Jon’s great legacy continue to be celebrated. Beyond all else, I hope this play serves that purpose.
Between Breaths was developed with assistance from ArtsNL, St. John’s City Arts Jury, and the Banff Centre’s Playwrights Lab, 2015. My thanks to all those who lent their time and their stories to Between Breaths: Judy Lien, Elling Lien, OJ Lien, Wayne Ledwell, Wayne Barney, Peter Hennebury, Bill Montevechhi, Holly Hogan and Danielle Devereaux.
In tribute
Artistic Fraud would like to dedicate this run of Between Breaths to our dramaturge Iris Turcott.
Together with Sarah Garton Stanley, Iris provided the clarity and backbone to our most celebrated works, including Afterimage and Oil and Water. She was a true hero of the Canadian theatre, always behind the scenes and rarely getting any of the credit. We counted ourselves lucky to have had her tireless passion and wisdom on our team. Iris passed away in September 2016. Between Breaths was to be the last play she helped us create.
Artists
Robert Chafe is a writer, educator, actor and arts administrator based in St. John’s, Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). He has worked in theatre, dance, opera, radio, fiction and film. His stage plays have been seen in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and in the United States, and include Oil and Water, Tempting Providence, Afterimage, Under Wraps, Between Breaths, Everybody Just Calm the Fuck Down, and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (adapted from the novel by Wayne Johnston.) He has been shortlisted twice for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and he won the award for Afterimage in 2010. He has been guest instructor at Memorial University, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, and The National Theatre School of Canada. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Memorial University. He is the playwright and Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud.
Jillian Keiley has directed and taught across Canada and internationally. She was the founding Artistic Director of Artistic Fraud. Highlights from her 27 years with the company include In Your Dreams Freud, Under Wraps, AfterImage, The Cheat, The Chekhov Variations, and Salvage: Story of a House, Oil and Water, Between Breaths, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and I Forgive You, most of which were featured on tours across Canada including the NAC. Jillian assumed her role as NAC English Theatre Artistic Director in 2012 and finished her tenure in 2022. Other NAC productions include A Christmas Carol, Twelfth Night, Metamorphoses: Based on the Myths of Ovid and Copenhagen. She also directed Bakkhai, The Diary of Anne Frank, and As You Like It for the Stratford Festival, as well as The Neverending Story and Alice Through the Looking-Glass, both produced as collaborations between the Stratford Festival and the NAC. Tempting Providence, her collaboration with Robert Chafe for Theatre Newfoundland Labrador, toured internationally for 12 years. Her production of Tell Tale Harbour at the Confederation Centre for the Arts was a blockbuster hit at the Confederation Centre this past summer and she looks forward to opening summer productions of Richard the Second at the Stratford Festival and Come From Away in Gander, Newfoundland. Jillian holds Honorary Doctorates of Letters from both Memorial University and York University, and she was the winner of the Siminovitch Prize for Directing in 2004 and the Canada Council’s John Hirsch Prize in 1997.
Kellie Walsh is the founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning Lady Cove Women's Choir and the Artistic Director of the internationally celebrated Shallaway Youth Choir. She has most recently co-founded the Inuit Youth Choir Ullûgiagatsuk from Nunatsiavut, Labrador, and is the immediate Past President of Canada’s national choral organization, Choral Canada. From deep and proud roots in Newfoundland and Labrador, she’s gained renown internationally for embracing the medium of choral singing as an opportunity to explore empathy building, sociocultural identity, and civic engagement. Walsh has worked across Canada, the United States, South America, Europe and Asia advocating choral music as a medium to unite people and cultures, transcend geography and societal, political and economic circumstances. Walsh believes the arts can play a transformative role in shaping communities' futures.
Sarah/SGS is VP of Programming at Arts Commons in Calgary and co-stewards historic Birchdale. Formerly the Artistic Producer for the National Creation Fund (NAC). As part of her PhD, in Cultural Studies at Queen’s, she created Massey & Me: Conversations at the End of Theatre. This five-part series formally references the CBC Massey Lectures, and it reflects critically on the genealogical, political, and administrative structures that house professional theatre in Canada.
She is co-founder of SpiderWebShow and FOLDA, the Baby Grand Theatre, was the 1st female Artistic Director at Buddies in Bad Times, and was the inaugural Artistic Associate for The Magnetic North Theatre Festival.
SGS was named a 2022 Arne Bengt Johansson Fellow at The Banff Forum and returned in 2023. She was recently appointed to the board of Alberta Theatre and the Buddies Leadership Advisory Pilot and the National Advisory for the Creation Fund.
SGS is co-authoring Manifesto for Now with Owais Lightwala.
Brian is a designer for theatre from Mt. Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador and is a graduate from The National Theatre School of Canada and Sheridan College. Selected credits include: Come From Away in concert [Mirvish, Marquis Ent], Billy Elliott, The Rocky Horror Show, The Music Man, Little Shop of Horrors [Stratford Festival], Elf, Grow, Mary Poppins [The Grand Theatre], Once [Segal Centre], Everybody Just C@lm The F#ck Down, Between Breaths, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams [Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland], Supper Club, Birthday Balloon [RCA Theatre]. Brian is a board member of the IATSE Local 659, The Associated Designers of Canada.
Sharon King-Campbell (she/her) is a theatre and literary artist based in Ktaqmkuk/Newfoundland. She has been working with Artistic Fraud since 2017 as director on transVersing, assistant director on Between Breaths, and director of five short monologues in The Imaginary Real. She has also directed for Bear & Co., Best Kind Productions, Grand Bank Regional Theatre, Stephenville Theatre Festival, New Curtain Theatre and Girl Power Inc, among others. Sharon is the author of four plays and one book of poetry, and is currently pursuing a PhD at Memorial University of Newfoundland. You can find out more at sharonkingcampbell.com.
Patrick Foran is a St. John's-based theatre artist and has served as Producer on several Artistic Fraud productions, including Under Wraps, Oil & Water, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Between Breaths, transVersing, The Other Side of This, and The Imaginary Real. As a community builder, Patrick helped establish the St. John's Short Play Festival and the Association of Professional Theatre of NL. As an actor, Patrick has worked with theatres across Newfoundland and Ontario, and is co-Artistic Director of Double Sure Theatre in St. John's. He is a graduate of Memorial University's Faculty of Business Administration and George Brown Theatre School.