You used to call me Marie... kicks off a Lower Mainland tour at the BMO Theatre Centre to October 12

Arts Club Theatre Company presents Tai Amy Grauman’s era-spanning love story that honours the intergenerational resilience of Métis women

*You used to call me Marie….* Photo by Emily Cooper

Arts Club Theatre Company presents the Savage Society and NAC Indigenous Theatre production You used to call me Marie… from September 25 to October 12 on the Olympic Village Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre

WHEN STIR REVIEWED You used to call me Marie… last year, we called it “a beautiful assertion of self” that feels “finely tuned and artfully crafted”. The play written by Tai Amy Grauman—who is Métis Cree with ties to Haudenosaunee voyageurs from Ardrossan, Alberta—is a love story grounded in the intergenerational resilience of Métis women.

This fall, the Arts Club Theatre Company is giving the production the remount it deserves. It will open at the BMO Theatre Centre’s Olympic Village Stage from September 25 to October 12, then tour the Lower Mainland until November 9, stopping at the Surrey Arts Centre, Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam, Clarke Theatre in Mission, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby, and the Anvil Theatre in New Westminster.

You used to call me Marie… revolves around the French-Cree woman Marie Callihoo, moving from the fur trade in the 1700s to political uprisings in the early 1930s to present-day romance. Three omnipresent narrators—Iskwewo, Napew, and Mistatim (“horse” in Michif)—carry the story through time and place.

Music and dance are integral components of the play. Fiddler Kathleen Nisbet, who is of Métis and settler ancestry, leads an ensemble through a mix of tunes that range from wistful to celebratory, characterized by banjo, guitar, standup bass, keyboard, and washboard. Métis-Assiniboine dance artist Sophie Dow, meanwhile, helps the storyline along with movement styles that evoke the various eras it travels through.

You used to call me Marie… is produced by Savage Society and National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre. Its upcoming presentation marks a full-circle moment for Grauman, who wrote the work about eight years ago while taking part in the Arts Club’s LEAP Playwriting Intensive.

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Emily Lyth

Stir editorial assistant Emily Lyth is a Vancouver-based writer and editor who graduated from Langara College’s Journalism program. Her decade of dance training and passion for all things food-related are the foundation of her love for telling arts, culture, and community stories.

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