Theatrical triple bill spotlights stories of motherhood at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, November 5 to 7
To Mum With Love, XO features plays by seasoned fringe artists Jonathon Paterson, Jacques Lalonde, and Jim Sands
Jonathon Paterson’s How I Met My Mother.
The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival presents To Mum With Love, XO: A theatrical triple bill at the Russian Hall from November 5 to 7
WHEN THEATRE ARTIST Jonathon Paterson was young, he was so maddened by the Winnipeg Jets losing a hockey game to the Edmonton Oilers that he punched a hole in the wall.
That anecdote is one of many that the fringe-circuit veteran shares in the first solo show he ever wrote, How I Met My Mother, which traces his evolution from rambunctious teen to irresponsible bachelor to full-time caregiver for his mother when she’s diagnosed with early-onset dementia.
Paterson is bringing How I Met My Mother to this year’s Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival as part of a triple bill called To Mum With Love, XO. Two more shows, Jacques Lalonde’s The Unbreakable Popsicle Stick Gang and Jim Sands’s How I Learned to Sing, also shine a spotlight on stories of motherhood.
The Unbreakable Popsicle Stick Gang centres on the everlasting bond between four kids and their loving mother. The show is deeply personal for Lalonde, who first performed it in 2006, almost a decade after his mother’s death. Like Paterson, he is a fringe veteran who received a lifetime achievement award from the Vancouver Fringe Festival in 1999; in all, he has performed at more than 25 editions of the fest.
How I Learned to Sing is about Sands’s experience growing up with a musically talented mother. The fringe-theatre and long-form-storytelling pro goes into detail about how he went about finding his own voice.
To Mum With Love, XO will be at the Russian Hall from November 5 to 7. As with most of the shows at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival—which is presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre in association with the Carnegie Community Centre and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians—admission is free or by donation. 
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