Realwheels Theatre announces 20th-anniversary season, welcomes artistic associate Adam Grant Warren
2023-24 lineup includes Warren’s Saturday Night At Axles, which centres a wheelchair user who works as a travel YouTuber
Adam Grant Warren. Photo by K Ho
REALWHEELS THEATRE IS celebrating its 20th-anniversary season as it announces the lineup of works in store for 2023-24. The company is also onboarding a new artistic associate, Adam Grant Warren, who will become a pivotal member of its team.
Warren is a two-time Jessie Award winner for his roles in Realwheels Theatre’s 2013 production CREEPS, and in Touchstone Theatre’s 2018 show Kill Me Now. His play Lights premiered at Touchstone Theatre in December 2021. A true multidisciplinary talent, Warren is also an associate artist at All Bodies Dance, and a filmmaker—his piece Float won Best Canadian Short at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2012.
Realwheels Theatre was founded in 2003 by theatre artist James Sanders. The company creates work with a goal of deepening Canadians’ understanding of the disability experience. Following digital pivots and leadership changes during the pandemic, several fresh initiatives are in store for audiences.
“Since the company was founded, the disability community has grown and shifted as it continually seeks to redefine itself,” says Shawn Macdonald in a release, Realwheels Theatre’s interim artistic director. “Realwheels is shifting right along with it, and the result is a deeper reach into the community and an expanded roster of work.”
The season kicks off on September 16 with the third edition of its online Playwriting Circle series, led by Natasha Nadir. A public reading will be held via Zoom on December 16 for the theatre artists to share excerpts of their plays.
In May, Realwheels Theatre presents three new works in a play-reading series at the Roundhouse Community Centre, each by an artist living with disability. The first play, Saturday Night At Axles, is by Warren. It centres travel YouTuber and wheelchair user Ramona Peet, who returns to her home town of St. John’s to visit the only wheelchair-accessible bar in the area. Told through the lens of old friendships, the play is packed with questions of belonging, identity, and perspective.
The second play in the series is Alex Masse’s Faye’s Room, which follows an autistic woman who works at a queer cafe; and the third is Vascular Necrosis by Jordyn Wood, a zombie trope flipped upside down to explore themes of chronic illness and identity.
The Realwheels Academy also continues this fall, led by instructors Sandra Ferens, Emily Jane King, and Harmanie Rose. The five-student cohort, now in their third and final school year, will present a devised work in their June 2024 year-end showcase.
The season closes with Disability Tour Bus in June 2024, a radio play directed by former Realwheels Theatre artistic director Rena Cohen. Starring Amy Amantea, Cadence Rush Quibell, Mack Gordon, and Lenard Stenga, the piece is about a young wheelchair user who gets a job as a tour operator.
For full details, see Realwheels Theatre.
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