Scene of amazing transformations, where cakes magically rise and soufflés heartbreakingly fall, the kitchen is surely one of our earliest childhood experiences of theatre. There we meet a diverse cast of characters: fire and water, sweet and salty, the enticing scent of vanilla and the horrible smell of burning! So it’s hardly surprising that a dancing bag of flour is the first thing to appear on the puppet stage of Le Temps des muffins... It is quickly joined by a chef/magician who whips words together, dares to play with his food, lays his own eggs, and invents a mountain of stories, games and pictures while he mixes up a batch of muffins from his Aunt Léa’s secret recipe. Abracadabra: before our very eyes, pastry becomes white magic and sugar falls from the sky! This culinary delight for apprentice cooks of all ages is a treat to the very last crumb.

For over 20 years, Joël da Silva has been writing and directing surrealistic plays that gleefully connect music, words and performance. Gathered around him onstage, young audience members are treated to a fabulous display of acting, puppetry, and theatre of objects.

A WORD FROM JOËL DA SILVA
In my theatre, there’s always a pot simmering in the wings. It probably goes back to my childhood, when my actor parents turned our dining room into a theatre... In my mind, cooking and theatre are blended together.

It’s true that the kitchen is a marvellous place, where seemingly separate things blend together, where ideas simmer before releasing their full flavour, where you can work miracles with a couple of potatoes, where a pear becomes a poem:

Ah, who will sing
Of ripe and juicy pears?

Yes, the theatre is an exuberant kitchen. But the recipe is always secret. And you have to dive right in and be prepared to get dirty, to get burned, to make mistakes, to succeed! The theatre is a kitchen for making things look different. And, as they say, “it tastes funny...”

It’s muffin time
And when it’s muffin time
It’s muffin time
It’s no time to pick a flower
No time for a drink, that’s certain
It’s no time to take a shower
It’s time, it’s time—
Open the curtain!
It’s muffin time!

JOËL DA SILVA AND THÉÂTRE MAGASIN
Founded in 1999 and based in Montreal, Théâtre Magasin is a creative centre for new work. It takes its name from the company’s first production, Le Magasin des Mystères (nouvelle administration), a cabaret-style musical collage of unlikely stories praised by audiences and critics alike for its bold approach and meticulous quality.

Artistic director Joël da Silva is a leading figure in theatre for young audiences. A writer, performer, director and musician, he has spent over 15 years indulging his passion for exploring the mischievous links between words, music and performance. Drawing freely on the rich and universal source material of myth and fairy tale, he crafts strikingly original, lyrical stories. Though his favourite subjects include cruelty, fear and solitude, they are always leavened by his very particular sense of humour. His plays have been produced by such acclaimed companies as Théâtre de Quartier (La Nuit blanche de Barbe?bleue, Le Pain de la bouche), Théâtre de l’Avant-Pays (Château sans roi, À nous deux!), and Moulin à Musique (La Maîtresse rouge, L’Aube).

Other Théâtre Magasin productions include Émile et Angèle, correspondance (2002), co-written by Joël da Silva and Françoise Pillet, directed by Sylviane Fortuny, and co-produced by French theatre company Françoise Pillet et cie (the play won the Théâtre l’Arrière Scène [Beloeil, QC] “Audience Choice” award for Best Play of the 2002–03 season); La Chanson du fou, by Joël da Silva (2006); and Le Petit Matériau rouge (2009).

After the 1:30 p.m. performance on Saturday, May 14, the audience is invited to stay in the Studio for a talkback session with members of the cast and creative team, hosted by Benoît Vermeulen. Duration: 20 minutes.

RESERVATIONS:
www.nac-cna.ca

TICKETMASTER:
613-755-1111

NAC BOX OFFICE
53 Elgin Street, Ottawa
Monday–Saturday
10 a.m.–9 p.m.

TICKETS
Adults $13.96
Children $13.96

MEDIA CONTACT
Guy Warin
Assistant to the Artistic Director
French Theatre
613-947-7000, ext. 581
gwarin@nac-cna.ca