Monster

Finalist for the Governor General's Award for Drama. Monster, a one–man play, begins in the total darkness of a movie theatre. After a long silence, someone in the audience rudely shushes his neighbour, and the show begins. Daniel MacIvor transforms himself into a series of characters whose lives seem eerily related. There's the young boy who tells the story of the neighbour lad who hacked up his father in the basement. There are alcoholic Al and whiny Janine, the lovers who quarrel, make up, and decide to marry after seeing a movie about a lad who…well, same thing. There's the ex–drunk who dreamed up the movie, but got no credit because he was said to have stolen the idea from a famous unfinished film, a claim that so angered him that he went back on the sauce. And there's the movie maker who made that incomplete epic.

Finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Drama. Monster, a one–man play, begins in the total darkness of a movie theatre. After a long silence, someone in the audience rudely shushes his neighbour, and the show begins. Daniel MacIvor transforms himself into a series of characters whose lives seem eerily related. There’s the young boy who tells the story of the neighbour lad who hacked up his father in the basement. There are alcoholic Al and whiny Janine, the lovers who quarrel, make up, and decide to marry after seeing a movie about a lad who…well, same thing. There's the ex–drunk who dreamed up the movie, but got no credit because he was said to have stolen the idea from a famous unfinished film, a claim that so angered him that he went back on the sauce. And there’s the movie maker who made that incomplete epic.

Daniel MacIvor has been creating theatre since 1986. He is a writer, performer, director, producer, and artistic director of da da kamera. His plays include See Bob Run, Wild Abandon, Never Swim Alone, 2–2 Tango, House, Here Lies Henry, and The Soldier Dreams. His plays have toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Daniel Brooks is the Artistic Director of The Necessary Angel Theatre Company. He is a prolific and versatile artist whose innovation and risk–taking have made him a leader within the Canadian cultural landscape. His theatrical productions include Cul–de–Sac, Here Lies Henry, The Noam Chomsky Lectures, Insomnia, The Good Life, Half Life, and Faust. He co–authored Monster with Daniel MacIvor (Scirocco Drama), and Bigger Than Jesus with Rick Miller (Scirocco Drama). The recipient of the inaugural Siminovitch Prize in Theatre (Canada’s most prestigious arts award), Brooks’ work has toured across the country and the world. Guillermo Verdecchia is a writer, director, and actor whose work has been seen and heard across Canada and around the world. The author or co–author of, among other works, Fronteras Americanas, The Noam Chomsky Lectures (with Daniel Brooks), and A Line in the Sand (with Marcus Youssef), he is a recipient of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, a four–time winner of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award, as well as a recipient of Dora, Jessie, and sundry film festival awards.