≈ 90 minutes · No intermission
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.
Last updated: October 31, 2019
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 an award-winning Filipino-Canadian director and dramaturg who has tirelessly advocated for the representation and flourishing of IBPoC voices in Canadian theatre. She was the Founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company and former Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre. She has directed world premieres and revivals at theatres across the country and has won a multitude of awards including the Ken McDougall Award, the Canada Council for the Arts John Hirsch Prize, the Margo Bindhart and Rita Davies Cultural Leadership Award, as well as a Toronto Theatre Critics Award and Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction for School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Obsidian Theatre), in addition to two Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Sultans of the Street (Young People’s Theatre) and paper SERIES (Cahoots Theatre). During her tenure, Factory cemented its reputation as a national leader for the development of new work and emerged as a leading training ground for the next generation of diverse Canadian theatre creators.
In addition to serving as the Founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian theatre company, Nina Lee Aquino is credited with a string of firsts in Asian Canadian theatre: she organized the first Asian Canadian theatre conference; she edited the first (two-volume) Asian Canadian play anthology, and she co-edited the first (award-winning) book on Asian Canadian theatre.
Nina Lee Aquino is currently President of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres.
Over 10 seasons at Factory Theatre, Nina programmed world premiere and Toronto premiere productions from playwrights such as David Yee, Anusree Roy, Marjorie Chan, Yvette Nolan, Kat Sandler, and Jeff Ho, among others; programmed bold and imaginative re-interpretations of classic Canadian plays from Judith Thompson, Colleen Wagner, David French, Linda Griffiths, Daniel MacIvor, Anosh Irani, and Claudia Dey. She fostered relationships with some of the best theatre companies from across the country and brought their productions to Factory Theatre.
Following the March 2020 pandemic shutdown, Nina fully embraced the new digital theatre medium, commissioning and directing new digital and audio theatrical works at Factory and with post-secondary institutions and festivals. Notable digital works include House: The Isolation Version by Daniel MacIvor (Factory Theatre), acts of faith by David Yee (Factory Theatre), Defined by Bone by Mayumi Lashbrook (CanAsian Dance), rabbit hole by David Yee (Ryerson University), and You Can’t Get There From Here, an audio drama series (Factory Theatre).
Nina Lee Aquino co-wrote Miss Orient(ed) and her monologues have been published in Beyond the Pale (edited by Yvette Nolan) and She Speaks (edited by Judith Thompson).
Nina has taught and directed at educational institutions such as Humber College, University of Guelph, University of Toronto Mississauga-Sheridan College, Ryerson University, York University, and the National Theatre School. She is an honorary member of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research and was recently appointed Adjunct Professor at York University’s Department of Theatre. Her leadership has extended into mentoring theatre students and emerging artists. She was also the 2019 winner of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Margo Bindhart.
Michelle Ramsay is an award-winning lighting designer for dance, theatre and opera. Previous designs include: The Waltz (Factory Theatre); Women of the Fur Trade (Stratford Festival); Little Shop of Horrors (Capitol Theatre); Beautiful (Arts Club); Redbone Coonhound (Tarragon Theatre/Imago Theatre); Martyr (ARC); The First Stone (New Harlem); The Doctors Dilemma (Shaw Festival); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (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.
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