≈ 75 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: February 6, 2024
Creator's Note
Do you like Hip Hop?
“I don’t like the misogyny,” “I like it when I’m drunk,” “Do they have to swear so much?”
Legitimate.
And.
I love Hip Hop.
Jamming on a middle school dancefloor to the Rascalz. Alone. Writing greeting cards like I'm Slick Rick. In rhyme. Running around Parkdale listening to Buy U A Drank. Shawty snappin’, of course.
Hip Hop is thumping when I’m kissing my first girlfriend. She likes punk. It’s spinning in my Walkman when we visit my Granddad in the hospital. I press pause. It’s playing when I compose a eulogy for my cousin Sheldon. I write it in rhyme. It feels better this way.
In 2010, within the same two years, I lost the oldest black man I know, my grandad, and the youngest black man in my family, my cousin Sheldon. Brotherhood came out of that time.
It’s for them.
And you.
If you like Hip Hop or not.
Among many, special thanks to Adam Lazarus, Karin Randoja, and Jacynthe Lalonde.
Program Notes
After twin rap stars CashMoney & MoneyPussy get into a car accident that kills one of the siblings, this unique one-man production follows the other as he grapples with his new identity and life outside of a close-knit duo. Set in the modern era, the show takes audiences back to Hip-Hop's earliest days in the 1970s, weaving the roots of the music and culture the brothers both loved with satire and tragedy-fuelled introspection.
Expanding on his initial 15-minute version first performed while he attended the National Theatre School of Canada, creator and actor Sébastien Heins uses Hip Hop, R&B, soul, funk, and gospel to tell a story of loss, identity, and brotherly love with cleverly-crafted lyrics and humour.
The 70-minute show was presented by b Current across Canada at the High Performance Rodeo in Calgary, Chinook Festival in Edmonton, Ottawa Undercurrents, and more, internationally to Mumbai and Bangalore, India, and New York City’s United Solo Festival where it won the Best Emerging Artist Award.
Artists
Heins has spent three seasons as a performer at the Stratford Festival, and played leading roles for Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, Factory Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times, and Theatre Passe Muraille. His first award-winning solo show Brotherhood: The Hip-Hopera has toured festivals around the world, from New York City to Mumbai.
Most recently, he is the creator and performer of No Save Points, the hit groundbreaking interactive memoir which allows audiences to use a hacked Gameboy controlling his body to play live-action games depicting his family’s struggle with Huntington’s Disease.
Heins is the Associate Artistic Director and a founding member of Outside the March, one of Canada’s leading immersive theatre companies. Since 2010, OtM has premiered more than two dozen landmark and innovative productions including No Save Points, Trojan Girls, Lessons in Temperament, The Tape Escape, Dr. Silver, TomorrowLoveTM and the international pandemic phenomenon The Ministry of Mundane Mysteries.
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.
Richard Lee is an award winning theatre artist and film maker. His work has garnered him multiple Dora Mavor Moore nominations out of which he has received three. His play Monday Nights (an interactive and immersive basketball show), has recently toured to PuSH International Performing Arts Festival, after a successful run at Toronto’s Luminato Festival. Richard is an advocate of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the arts and works tireless for a better more thoughtful tomorrow.
Akeem Oh is a American-Canadian singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer primarily based in Toronto Canada. His work stretches across multiple creative industries such as music, film and theatre. His singles "Winter Crush" and "School Girl" were released to critical acclaim, with CBC naming the former one of the "Top 3 New Ontario Songs You Need To Hear“. The main focus for Oh has been shows, including sold out shows at Ottawa's National Arts Centre in 2022 and at the infamous Club SAW in 2023. He’ll be releasing new music in early 2024.
Jackie McCormick has been proud to call Ottawa home since 2014. She was most recently the Stage Manager for The Supine Cobbler at Great Canadian Theatre Company, where she was also the SM for The Unplugging earlier this year. Jackie has been on the Stage Management Team for over 40 productions at Upper Canada Playhouse in Morrisburg, Ontario, being the Stage Manager for Buying the Farm and Moving In this past Summer. Jackie has been fortunate to Stage Manage shows in Alberta, New Brunswick, and throughout Ontario since graduating from (recently renamed) Toronto Metropolitan University in 2005. Thank you and much love to her family: J, Q & B.
Credits
Company
Creator/Performer
Sebastien Heins
Director
Nina Lee Aquino
Lighting Designer
Michelle Ramsay
Sound Designer
Richard Lee
Stage Manager
Jackie McCormick
NAC Production Team
Azrieli Studio Team
Head Technician
Stephane Boyer
Assistant Head technician
Leigh Utley
Technical Director
Peter Lyne
Projectionists, Wardrobe Mistresses, Masters and Attendants are members of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 471.
The National Arts Centre is a member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association
NAC English Theatre Team
Managing Director
David Abel
Artistic Director
Nina Lee Aquino
Senior Engagement Strategist, Community & Partnerships
Rose-Ingrid Benjamin
Learning Coordinator
Aimee Bouchard
ASL Interpreter Consultant
Carmelle Cachero
Marketing Strategist
Bar Clement
Communications Strategist
Sean Fitzpatrick
Senior Producer
Alexandra Lunney
Senior Marketing Manager
Bridget Mooney
Associate Producer, Artistic Programming and Environmental Projects
Judi Pearl
Company Manager
Samira Rose
Administrative Coordinator
Monika Seiler
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Lead Donor
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Official Hotel Sponsor
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INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF THEATRICAL STAGE EMPLOYEES
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees