Jusqu’où te mènera Montréal ?

A territory inhabited for 4000 years by Amerindian peoples, a city « founded » by the French, conquered by the English and for a long time caught in the grip of Catholicism. Montreal is growing, seeking and stumbling, intent on asserting itself loudly and clearly in the eyes of a world undergoing massive change. Let us pay tribute to the city with this theatrical, literary, touristically incorrect cabaret. Make way for a dreamy, fiery and exhilarating celebration!

Seven Montreal writers from a wide range of backgrounds spent weeks walking the streets of neighbourhoods on this big island, districts they were unfamiliar with such as Beaconsfield, Hochelaga Maisonneuve, Westmount, etc. From a Congolese immigrant to a First Nations writer, they all responded to mischievous writing instructions that hijacked the bromides of a tourism guide. Terse reflections, poetic flights of fancy, suave dialogues and other offbeat postcards paint an invigorating, trenchant portrait of a city that might very well seem strange to us.

Produced by Jamais Lu + Théâtre Aux Écuries
Ideated and directed by Martin Faucher
Authors Sébastien David + Alexis Diamond + Anne-Marie Guilmaine + Thomas Hellman + Pierre Lefebvre + Melissa Mollen Dupuis + Marie Louise Bibish Mumbu
Photographers Jérémie Battaglia + Kevin Calixte + Léa Castonguay
Performed by Alex Bergeron + Karine Gonthier-Hyndman + Sharon Ibgui + Etienne Lou + Papy Maurice Mbwiti
Live music Navet Confit + Guido Del Fabbro + Benoit Landry
Lighting designer, assistant to director and stage manager Marie-Aube St-Amant‒Duplessis
Production Manager Samuel Patenaude

Co-produced by Festival TransAmériques
With the support of Fondation Cole

Presented by Hyatt Regency Montréal in association with Société de la Place des Arts + Atelier 10
An event part of the official programming of the 375^th anniversary of Montreal

Written by Paul Lefebvre
Translated by Neil Kroetsch
Promotional video Jérémie Battaglia

Premiered at Festival TransAmériques, Montreal, on June 7, 2017