Firehall Arts Centre Wraps 2023-2024 Season with PADDLE SONG

The Firehall Arts Centre will wrap its 2023-2024 season by welcoming back Cheri Maracle in Paddle Song. Running from Friday, May 24 to Sunday, June 2, this energetic and humorous one-woman musical reflects on the proud legacy of trailblazing Mohawk poet E. Pauline Johnson.

Produced and performed by multi-award nominated performer and singer/songwriter Cheri Maracle, Paddle Song captures the heart and journey of this gifted writer and poised orator, from a young woman canoeing the Grand River at home on Chiefswood, to her promising career just beginning, to earning her place on stages in Ontario, then Canada, the United States, and Great Britain.

One of Canada’s most remarkable feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Pauline Johnson endlessly fought for equality, acceptance, and respect as an Indigenous female performer with a voice in a male-dominated literary world. A monument in Stanley Park commemorates her work and legacy.

Credits for the 2024 remount of Paddle Song:

Produced & Performed by:  Cheri Maracle

Playwrights:  Dinah Christie & Tom Hill
Directed by:  Dinah Christie
Re-staging Direction by:  Columpa Bobb

Original Music & Lyrics by:  Dinah Christie

Musical Arrangements by:  Mark Rutherford, Justin Burgess, Brendan Peltier & Marc Nadjiwan-Merilainen

Slides by:  Trevor Schwellnus
Costume Design by:  Naomi Martin