≈ 90 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: October 31, 2019
Artistic Director’s Notes
Like the National Arts Centre, the National Theatre School of Canada (NTS) is a unique multi-pronged endeavour. Its mission gathers the best and brightest from across the country through a highly competitive audition process and selects a very small cohort each year to study playwriting, acting, direction, design or production in either English or French. The student to teacher ratio is small, and direct access to current practitioners is one of the biggest assets of the school. Jeff Ho is a graduate of that program, and he worked on the development of trace at NTS with Yael Farber, a titan of a theatre creator who is known around the world for her incredible insight and mastery.
The solo theatre project at NTS asks students to write what they know. Mani Soleymanlou’s international smash Un came out of a similar initiative on the French side of NTS, and Ted Dykstra made an early iteration while there of what became Two Pianos Four Hands before creating the famous version with Richard Greenblatt. Many Ottawa theatregoers will remember the powerful Brotherhood by Sebastian Heins that played at Undercurrents, or Anita Majumdar’s Fish Eyes that played at GCTC, two further examples of far-reaching projects borne of this same educational self-exploratory initiative. In trace, Jeff also writes what he knows. This story, told through the windows of Jeff’s female lineage (and assigning all the roles of adult men to the piano), offers us a unique way to connect with this artist.
When he started the solo show project in his second year at NTS, Yael asked him, “What do your ancestors demand you speak?” Lucky for us, Jeff took this question as a provocation and put words into the mouths of his ancestors directly, reinterpreting their hopes and intentions in each brutal, life‑altering decision they enacted to make his own life better.
Thank you for taking this opportunity to spend a few hours with the women in Jeff’s family, and for welcoming this truthful, beautiful work into your world.
Playwright’s Notes
trace is a composition of love – a tapestry of memories and myths. Particularly, it is a celebration of the women in my family, the core pillars that have persisted and survived against all odds.
My Great Grandma is this legendary figure in our family – a single mother who fled from China to Hong Kong during the Japanese Invasion of WWII. Without her iron will to survive, our entire bloodline would not be here today.
In stories recounted by Ma, my Aunts and Uncles, Great Grandma stands as this lioness, ferocious when the family was threatened, yet equally tender and caring. She also held a deep secret, only known to us through whispers, one that drove my initial impulse to write this piece.
Similarly, my Ma too is a lioness. She was a single mother who brought my brother and me from Hong Kong to Canada, single-handedly transplanting our familial roots in the pursuit of “the better life.” A trace of my Great Grandma is evidently found in my Ma.
With everything they’ve passed on to me, with every capacity for expression I was raised with, I trace their parallels, their battles, their dreams, their nightmares and their sacrifices, through this play.
Thank you for joining us, and I encourage you to reflect on the traces of your own ancestral past, with me, here.
A Factory Theatre (Toronto, ON) production
trace was first produced by Factory Theatre in association with b current performing arts in Toronto, Canada, November 2017.
trace is presented by arrangement with Ian Arnold, Catalyst TCM Inc.
Factory
Thank you from Factory
Sherry Bie, Sehar Bhojani, Jodi Essery, Yael Farber, Darrel Gamotin, Darcy Gerhart, Catherine Hernandez, Jani Lauzon, Adam Lazarus, Richard Lee, Eponine Lee, Anita Majumdar, Michael Man, Jajube Mandiela, Brian Quirt, Jenna Rodgers, Miquelon Rodriguez, Lisa Truong, Iris Turcott, Bob White, Nigel Shawn Williams, Alison Wong and David Yee.
Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, The Wuchien Michael Than Foundation, BMO, the Government of Canada, TD Bank, b current theatre, the Banff Centre Playwrights Lab 2015, the Stratford Playwrights Retreat 2016, fu-GEN, and Summerworks.
Staff
Artistic Director | Nina Lee Aquino
Managing Director | Jonathan Heppner
Philanthropy & Partnerships Manager | Mark Aikman
Interim Production Manager | Alanna McConnell
Company Dramaturg | Matt McGeachy
Marketing & Audience Development Manager | Lauren Naus
Patron Services Manager | Himanshu Sitlani
Board of Directors
Len Racioppo (Chair), Greg Power (Vice Chair), Noha Yahia Abji (Treasurer), Jonathan Odumeru (Secretary), Stewart Adams, Charmain Emerson, Grazyna Krupa, Brian Rintoul, Ebony Rose, Susan Sutton
Artists
Jeff Ho is a theatre artist, originally from Hong Kong. As an actor, he has toured as Ophelia in Why Not Theatre's Prince Hamlet across Canada and the United States over a span of five years. Other credits include: I Forgive You (Artistic Fraud), Orestes (Tarragon Theatre), trace (Remount - NAC/Factory Theatre), Box 4901 (Buddies in Bad Times), camera obscura (hungry ghosts) (the frank theatre/QAF - Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Production - Small Theatre), Hana's Suitcase (Young People's Theatre, tour: Toronto, Montreal and Seattle), Kim's Convenience (CBC), The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu), and Orphan Black (BBC America).
As a playwright, his works include cockroach (Tarragon Theatre), Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) (Theatre Passe Muraille/Saga Collectif/Architect Theatre), Antigone: 方 (Young People's Theatre), and trace (NAC/Factory Theatre/b current). His plays are published by Playwrights Canada Press.
Jeff is grateful to have been honoured with a Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best New Canadian Play (Iphigenia); the Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund Award for a Young Canadian Playwright; the Bulmash Siegel Playwriting Award; finalist for the Playwright's Guild of Canada's Drama award (cockroach); finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award (Iphigenia and Antigone); nominated for four Dora Awards. He is a graduate of the National Theatre School and is currently an MFA candidate at York University.
Nina Lee Aquino is a renowned Filipino Canadian director, dramaturg, artistic leader, teacher, and mentor. She previously served as Artistic Director at Cahoots Theatre (2009–2012) and Factory Theatre (2012–2022). Currently, Nina is the Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre English Theatre. She edited the country’s first two-volume Asian Canadian play anthology and co-edited the award-winning inaugural book on Asian Canadian theatre. In addition, she holds an adjunct professorship at York University's Theatre Department and serves on the board of directors for the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres. Her numerous accolades include the Canada Council for the Arts’ John Hirsch Prize for Directing, the Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Director, the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Margo Bindhart and Rita Davies Cultural Leadership Award, and three Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Direction.
Michelle Ramsay is an award-winning lighting designer for dance, theatre and opera. Previous designs include: Come Home: The Legend of Daddy Hall (Tarragon Theatre); Women of the Fur Trade (Stratford Festival); Bed and Breakfast (Capitol Theatre); Prison Dancer (Citadel Theatre/National Arts Centre); Beautiful (Arts Club); Redbone Coonhound (Tarragon Theatre/Imago Theatre); Martyr (ARC); The First Stone (New Harlem); The Doctors Dilemma (Shaw Festival); The Tempest (Theatre Rusticle).
Michelle has received eight Dora Awards, a SATAward, the 2008 Pauline McGibbon Award, and was a finalist for the 2021 Siminovitch Prize. She is on the Board of the Associated Designers of Canada.
Joanna Yu (she/her)
Joanna is an award-winning set and costume designer, having designed over 100 productions; over half of which have been World Premieres. She's designed for the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival, Mirvish, Soulpepper, Canadian Stage, Canadian Opera Company, Arts Club, Citadel Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Grand, Neptune, Theatre New Brunswick, Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Buddies in Bad Times, Obsidian, fu-Gen, Cahoots, Theatre Centre, Young People’s Theatre, Tarragon, and many others. Joanna proudly sits on the board of the Associated Designers of Canada (ADC659) www.joannayudesign.com.
.
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees