Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre presents the world premiere of This Stays In The Room, a collective creation based on true stories of shame and forgiveness. This Stays in the Room is courageous, revealing, humorous, and is based entirely on lived experiences of the creative team.
Through text, song, photography, video and choreographed movement, This Stays in the Room invites the audience on a very personal journey, to share a uniquely human state that is common to us all. Weaving together seven heart-rending stories, This Stays In The Room brings together several of Vancouver’s finest theatre artists in what promises to be the most intimate and revealing piece to date from Horseshoes & Hand Grenades.
From the producers of Except in the Unlikely Event of War, Re:Union, and Palace of the End, This Stays in the Room represents bold moves for Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre. This will not only mark the company’s first collective creation but will also be their first site-specific production. In choosing Gallery Gachet as the venue, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades’ audience is invited into a non-theatre space, removing the barrier between audience and performer. In order to explore the intersection between performance and visual art, the production set will remain accessible as an ongoing gallery installation during the play’s run.
“The experience of shame is familiar and universal. It’s a visceral sensation in which the rejection of self allows us to disengage and separate from others. It grows in silence. Forgiveness, however, is a relational journey. The experience of and need for forgiveness is very individual and varies from person to person”, says Mindy Parfitt of Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, who developed This Stays in the Room with fellow co-artistic director Alexa Devine over the past three years, in partnership with Playwrights Theatre Centre, and in association with Radix Theatre.
Alexa Devine adds, “Our aim is to reveal the repetitive cycles of shaming and being shamed, forgiving and being forgiven, and to show just how universal it is. To do so, we’re inviting the audience into a vulnerable environment where the stories they will hear will be shocking, lovingly rendered, painfully human, and probably quite familiar.”
Written by the entire creative team, This Stays in the Room is directed by Mindy Parfitt, and features actors Alexa Devine, Allan Morgan, Manami Hara, and Robert Salvador with choreography by Amber Funk Barton.
About Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre is committed to the pillars of story, risk, investigation, and collaboration. Never afraid to shine light into darkness, the company creates theatre that reveals the vulnerable heart and champions the brave idea. Horseshoes & Hand Grenades is a provocative and political group that are not content with holding a mirror up to society – they would rather conduct an autopsy on it.
This Stays in the Room
Dates: March 19 to 30; March 19 to 21, 23, 25 to 27, 30, 8 pm; March 22, 28 to 29, 7 pm and 10 pm; March 20, opening night
Venue: Gallery Gachet, 88 East Cordova Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $20; available online; special 2-for-1 preview on March 19