The Land Acknowledgement or As You Like It
A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal
Shakespeare’s timeless tale of mistaken identities, gentle ruses, banishment, and forgiveness takes on an entirely different meaning in this daring new retelling.
Crow’s Theatre, one of Toronto’s most eclectic and adventuresome companies, decided to begin with an audacious new show. They said very little about it. Only that it was a 'radical retelling by Cliff Cardinal' of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. There were no further details, no cast list, nothing.
How – and why - was Cardinal, a young Indigenous playwright and actor of Cree and Lakota heritage, someone acclaimed for his acerbic humour and willingness to deal with raw emotions and difficult subject matter, going to retell one of Shakespeare’s most accessible and whimsical plays?
Called 'the Canadian arts surprise of the year' Cardinal's brilliant play, The Land Acknowledgement or As You Like It, offers us the unvarnished truth of the state of the reconciliation process between Indigenous communities and colonial settlers in Canada. When the curtains rise, you can be certain that it’s Shakespeare as you’ve never seen it before and certainly never will again.
‘A liberating night at the theatre. Brutally funny and honest’The Globe and Mail Critic’s Pick
'Cardinal's masterful use of dark comedy throughout the work helps audiences navigate the lessons woven into every part of the story'Broadway World
'unlike any other production of the play, past or future'Now Toronto
Post-show Talk on Wed 22 May with:
Amy Zamarripa Solis
Amy Zamarripa Solis is CEO and Founder of Writing Our Legacy CIC, a diverse-led arts and heritage organisation that enables Black, Asian and ethnically diverse/BPOC people to tell their stories through writing and the creative arts. It is now an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation for 2023-2026. She also works part-time at a sustainable development charity, Foundation for Future London.
Amy has worked in communications, fundraising, and management in the arts, culture and creative sectors for over 25 years in the UK. She has worked for various charities, businesses, and organisations, from tech start-ups and grassroots community groups to national and international bodies including Arts Council England. Since 2016, she has run her own arts management and production company, This Too Is Real, supporting and developing art and cultural work that promotes social cohesion, equality and diversity.
Amy sits on the boards of Disability Arts Online and Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture Organisation and is a long-standing volunteer with Brighton & Hove Black History.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyzamarripasolis/
X/Twitter @amyzsolis @BHwritinglegacy
Alan Lester
Alan Lester is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex and Adjunct Professor of History at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He has written extensively about British colonialism, mainly in the nineteenth century, including the recent books Indigenous Communities and Settler Colonialism (with Zoe Laidlaw), Ruling the World: Freedom, Civilisation and Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century British Empire (with Kater Boehme and Peter Mitchell) and Deny and Disavow: Distancing the Imperial Past in the Culture Wars. He is co-editor of the Manchester University Press Studies in Imperialism research monograph series and has just edited The Truth About the British Empire with contributions from fourteen historians and a foreword by Sathnam Sanghera challenging revitalised mythologies of Empire It will be released by Hurst on 27th June.
Supported by:
Crow’s Theatre gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council