Special thanks to Michael Pihach for helping me create the image and to Dan Vernon for the poster design.

FYI-
PSi is a professional association founded in 1997 to promote communication and exchange between scholars and practitioners working in the field of performance. The organisation has staged numerous international conference and festival gatherings that have moved between the discourse and practice of performance. PSi conferences have been held across the U.S.A. and the U.K. and in Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, and Croatia.

for more info check out their website http://psi16.com/

This performance is directed by Brendan Healy and dramaturged by Judith Rudakoff.

Very excited that my play The Silicone Diaries is being studied at another Canadian university.  It will be required reading in Sexuality and the Stage, a theatre course taught by reknowned playwright/director Sky Gilbert.  I will also be showing up (Nov 2, 2010) to speak in the class.

(The Silicone Diaries was dramaturged by Judith Rudakoff and directed by Brendan Healy.)

I am going to be speaking at York University’s theatre department’s monthly Prime Time event, a monthly speakers’ series for the students. I will be talking about the process of working on my plays The Silicone Diaries and i was Barbie. I will also be taking part in a live interview about my artistic work by queer theatre academic (and the Chair of the Board of Directors of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre) J. Paul Halferty. The event is taking place on February 10th, 11:30am-1:30pm, in the beautiful Faire Fecan Theatre.

The event is coordinated by Marlis Schweitzer, the Area Coordinator for Theatre Studies at York.

About CIUT
CIUT 89.5 FM is Toronto’s preeminent, listener-supported presenter of leading-edge music and spoken-word programming since 1966. Firmly rooted in the University of Toronto community, CIUT’s programming reaches and represents the community at large and encompasses a wide panorama of styles and expressions. CIUT entertains and informs listeners from Barrie to Buffalo, Kitchener to Cobourg, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I recently had the pleasure of attending Telling Takes Out of School, a project of the Playwriting and New Play Dramaturgy students at York U’s Theatre Department. The evening consisted of original monologues presented or performed by the students. Each monologue was inspired by one of Toronto’s leading theatre professionals. Each student had chosen a different artist to interview earlier this year and created a work based upon that person’s essence. I saw pieces inspired by Daniel Brooks, John Mighton, Sky Gilbert, Evalyn Parry, David Smuckler, Kelly Thornton, and others.

Because I know some of the artists and their work it was fasinating to see how the 3rd and 4th year students experienced them.

One of the students, Dan Vernon, interviewed me back in October and devised a beautiful piece called “The Nun and the Wolf.” I was impressed and honoured by how he interpreted me.  His monologue was very provocative (how fitting!), and there was a palpable shifting in the audience at the climax of his piece.

There were bios of some of the inspiring artists in the program.  Dan included only a single quote from me in the program: “I want to be able to be a human animal.”  Yes, there´s more…. »

AN INTERVIEW WITH CANADA’S MOST FAMOUS TRANSSEXUAL

by Evan Vipond: Contributor [to Excalibur]

Nina Arsenault is commonly referred to as Canada’s most famous transsexual. Arsenault has two postgraduate degrees in theatre, one of which was completed at York University alongside her undergraduate degree. After quitting the theatre world to transition from man to woman and undergoing 60 cosemtic procedures, Arsenault has recently re-entered theatre as both playwright and performer. Her most recent play, The Silicone Diaries, will be produced by Buddies in Bad Times Theatre from Nov 14th to 21.

EVAN: Playwriting is about creating a story, while directing is about representing or interpreting someone else’s story. Which do you prefer, the role of the primary creator or the interpreter?

NINA: Primary creator at this point, absolutely. Because the thing is, where I am in my life, my identity and my history, there’s not a lot of stories like mine. It’s not like I can filter my experience through another writer’s words. I don’t really know any other writers [like me.]

E: Your recent theatre work has been autobiographical. do you see this as a continuing trend?

N: Yeah, definately. I just think that turth is stranger and more interesting than fiction. And I think that the way I live my life and who I am is pretty unique, so I might as well just keep going. I trust that my life is interesting, that my stories are interesting, so I will do that.
     I think a lot of work I see about trans people is either documentary stuff, which is great, but that only satisfies in a certain way, and then a lot of it is really fake –like campy stories about trans people. So I want to explore aspects of my experience which aren’t necessarily “documentary” and that speaks to different sublime qualities in my life.
     The things is, as a trans person, rarely do we ever get to tell our stories in the way we want to tell them. Even when there is someone doing a documentary about us, and there have been so many documentaries about us, it’s rarely us who’s putting it together. So it’s always someone else who’s constructing our narratives. Yes, there´s more…. »

Silicone is anything but shallow

by evelyn shaller-auslander (reprinted with the permission of the author)

Nina Arsenault wrote and stars in The Silicone Diaries, playing at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre from November 14th-21st. Based on a series of articles for wrote for fab magazine detailing the trials and tribulations of aquiring the many dangerous silicone injections needed to produce her very feminine body, Silicone details more cosmetic procedures than you thought possible. Directed by Brendan Healy, this is one queer show you won’t want to miss.

I may or may not have snuck into her dressing room to take her make-up and wardrobe hostage until she answered my questions…

Many people are surprised to hear that you have a Master’s degree and taught at York University. Do you ever feel limited by people’s expectations?

I feel like I challenge people’s expectations. I sometimes think people underestimate my intelligence –maybe because I’m trans, maybe because I have big hair and wear lots of lip gloss. I don’t think it ever limits me in the end though. It means I get to see the ah-ha moment when people realize that I’m fiercer than they thought. It’s fun.

Do you consider yourself to be a feminist?

I am a feminist who believes that every woman has the right to be the type of woman she wants to be, and that all women have the right to seek happiness and pleasure wherever they choose.

Why do hordes of gay men idolize you?

I just assume that anyone who is a fan of my work is someone who has felt at some point in their life that they have had to fight to be who they are. At the end of the day we are all meant to be as beautiful, as sexy, as creative, as bold, as flamboyant, as challenging as we want to be. I feel bad when I see truly fabulous outrageous people being pressured by society to be smaller than they are. I think a lot of fags, particularly femme fags, relate with that. And then there’s also fags who relate with me because they are also obsessed with their bodies. Yes, there´s more…. »

Evan Vipond, a 4th year York University theatre student, is compiling my media, theatre and performance work for a final year project.  The archive will include my play scripts, press, reviews, selected Tgirl columns and all materials related to my performance work.  The project is part of Evan’s work for the 4000 level Canadian Theatre course.

The archive will eventually be available in Scott Library at York University.

The upcoming production of The Silicone Diaries at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is going to be a required experience, a course text, for York University students in two third year courses. They are:

1.) AP/EN 3225 6.00 Canadian Women’s Theatre in English: A Survey of Canadian
Theatre/ Drama by Women from the 19th Century to the Present Fall/Winter

2.) AP/EN 3080 6.00 Theatre in Review Fall/Winter

Both classes are taught by Kym Bird. Yes, there´s more…. »