[URBAN NOTE] "Tomson Highway’s Wisdom"

[rfmcdonald]

The interview of Torontoist's Martin Morrow with queer Cree Canadian dramatist Tomson Highway is a joy to read.

There’s no disputing that Tomson Highway is Canada’s best-known First Nations playwright. However, he might also be one of Canada’s foremost feminist playwrights. Apart from one notable exception—the all-male Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing—Highway’s plays have been dominated by strong women, from The Rez Sisters and Rose to Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout and, most recently, his Juno Award-nominated one-woman musical The (Post) Mistress.

“Are you telling me to stop it?” Highway says, laughing, when his preference for female characters is pointed out to him. He’s on the phone from Saskatoon, where The (Post) Mistress recently played at Persephone Theatre. But he’ll be in Toronto this weekend to showcase his tuneful side with a talent-packed variety show at Hugh’s Room in Roncesvalles.

Dubbed Songs in the Key of Cree, the show features Highway—who is also a songwriter and classically trained pianist—performing his eclectic repertoire with guests including Micah Barnes, Patricia Cano, Teresa Castonguay, Laura Hubert, and Jani Lauzon. Marcus Ali will be blowing sax and John Alcorn is acting as musical director and co-keyboardist.

“I just adore him,” Highway says, at the mention of Alcorn’s name. “If you need a headline for your piece, make it: ‘Tomson Highway Adores John Alcorn.’ I’m thrilled to be working with him again.”