PlayME Podcast Presents Live Recordings ft. Daniel MacIvor, Judith Thompson & More

Expect Theatre is thrilled to present four live PlayME Podcast recordings featuring some of Canada's most outstanding names in theatre including d'bi.young anitafrika, Judith Thompson, Keith Barker, and Daniel MacIvor between March and May 2018 at the Red Sandcastle Theatre in Toronto.

PlayME, an online portal presenting audio podcasts of Canadian plays and related content is excited to expand to live recordings of PlayME Mono, playwrights discussing their favourite, most divisive, or personal monologues in front of a live audience, co-presented by the Playwrights Guild of Canada. After great success in listenership for the first season of Canada's National Digital Theatre, PlayME continues their second season with Kat Sandler's BANG BANG, Hannah Moscovitch's Bunny, and The Musical Stage Co.'sReframed, a series of three short musicals; in addition to PlayME Mono.

The PlayMe Mono initiative was kicked off this week with dub poet, educator, and triple Dora Award-winning actor and playwright, d'bi.young anitafrika discussing her drama,She Mami Wata & The PussyWitch Hunt, which looks at gender, sexuality, and the erotic through the life of three friends growing up in present-day Jamaica. anitafrika is the founding Artistic Director of the Watah Theatre and the Anitafrika Retreat Centre, an international artist residency for global change-makers, in the mountain forests of Costa Rica.

On Thursday, March 15, two-time Governor General's Award-winning playwright, Judith Thompson will join the PlayME Podcast team as she gets up close and personal talking about a monologue from Palace of the End, a docudrama of real-life tales of Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. No stranger to the radio play, Thompson also wrote Tornado, which won the ACTRA Award for Best Radio Drama.

On Monday, April 23, playwright and Native Earth Performing Arts' Artistic Director, Keith Barker will discuss in front of a live audience his favourite monologue from This is How We Got Here, a heartbreaking and heartwarming story of a close-knit family as they deal with an unexpected loss. As a playwright, Barker has been the recipient of Saskatchewan's SATAward for Excellence in Playwriting and the Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change.

On Monday, May 14, Daniel MacIvor will go in-depth with the audience on his one-man showWho Killed Spalding Grey?, a moving monologue about death, depression and the art of storytelling. A Governor General's Literary Award-winner for Drama and Siminovitch Prize-winner for Theatre, MacIvor is also the recipient of an Obie Award and a GLAAD Award-winner.

Audiences across the world have embraced Canadian theatre with PlayME often putting it at #1 in Performing Arts on iTunes and #2 in Overall Arts; while consistently sitting in iTunes' What's Hot section. With listenership consistently growing since its inception in January 2016, PlayME now has a daily download of 1000-1500 per day, with over 570 000 downloads in total for their weekly episodes. Of those listeners, 83% are international, making PlayME an incredible source for sharing Canadian theatre content with the world; the highest international downloads come from the USA, the United Kingdom, Iran, and South Africa. The next season of PlayME will include work by The Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa, The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, and Artistic Fraud in St. John's.

Expect Theatre presents
PlayME Podcast
Canada's National Digital Theatre
Thursday, March 15, 2018 @ 7pm - Judith Thompson, live recording
Monday, April 23, 2018 @ 7pm - Keith Barker, live recording
Monday, May 14, 2018 @ 7pm - Daniel MacIvor, live recording
Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen Street East, Toronto
Admission is Pay-What-You-Can at the Box Office in person 30 minutes before the show.

For more information visit www.playmepodcast.com/
To listen to episodes of PlayME, including Kat Sandler's BANG BANG, visit: http://www.playmepodcast.com/listen-to-playme/