david gagnon walker.

A STRANGE VICTORY PERFORMANCE
Writer, performer, producer.
Published by Playwrights Canada Press.

David has written a play for himself and a gathering of friends and strangers to read together out loud. It’s the story of the rise and fall of an imaginary civilization in an imaginary land. A poetic fable about how to live with the slowly unfolding emergencies of our world, it’s also an invitation to join in on the artistic process, and a testament to the power of a roomful of people discovering a story together.

Created by a team of award-winning artists from across Canada, This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear invites you back to the theatre after the strangest years of our lives, asking you to help tell a story about worry and wonder, loneliness and community, beauty and despair.

Participate according to your own comfort – read for a character, join the chorus, or sit back and watch – and join this humorous, cathartic exploration of our innermost private fears.

Video excerpt on this page (first image).

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Upcoming Ontario Presents Tour to Kingston (Grand Theatre), St. Catharines (First Ontario Centre), and Kitchener-Waterloo (Registry Theatre ). March-April 2025.

Presented by Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre. Gateway Theatre. Edmonton, AB. Jan 31 - Feb 4, 2024.

Presented by In the Soil Arts Festival. Oddfellows Hall. St. Catharines, ON. June 16-18, 2023.

Presented by Theatre Projects Manitoba. Théâtre Cercle Molière. Winnipeg, MB. April 28-30, 2023.

Presented by SummerWorks 2022. Franco Boni Theatre, The Theatre Centre. Toronto, ON. August 4-7, 2022.

Presented by Pi Theatre. KW Studios. Vancouver, BC. June 2-4, 2022.

Presented by High Performance Rodeo 2022. Big Secret Theatre, Arts Commons. Calgary, Alberta. May 26-28, 2022.

Presented by Found Festival 2021. Studio Theatre, ATB Financial Arts Barns. Edmonton, AB. July 8-11, 2021. Sold-out run.

Programmed by rEvolver Festival 2021, Vancouver, BC. [Cancelled due to COVID-19.]

Workshop presentation at BellsView Studios. Halifax, NS. February 28, 2020.

Produced by Strange Victory Performance.

Written and performed by David Gagnon Walker
Directed by Christian Barry and Judy Wensel
Dramaturgy by Christian Barry
Lighting design by Christian Barry and Tori Morrison
Sound design, video design, and production management by Tori Morrison
Physical design by Morgan Melenka
Technical and design assistance by Patricia Vinluan and Lauren Acheson

Photos by Mat Simpson, Gergo Koroknay, and Henry Chan.

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Development support from Canada Council for the Arts, 2b theatre company, National Theatre School of Canada, Common Ground Arts Society, and Upintheair Theatre.

Additional thanks to Karen Gross, Anthony Black, Marcus Youssef, and our workshop audiences in Halifax and Edmonton.

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"I left the theatre, and a discussable and pleasurable evening, with a renewed appreciation that theatre, the art form of real people together in the same room sharing an experience, is on the right track. We’ve always known it: it’s validating to have a demo from an artist, a true original, that it’s meaningful, even cathartic, to tell stories together about what haunts us, scares us, weighs us down. There’s wonder in it. And wonder is enlivening."
— Liz Nichols, 12thnight.ca

"We all have fears and sometimes we can be brave and sometimes we can’t. The play evades a simple answer. Nevertheless, the true outcome is that, in the end, together we have all created something that at the outset we couldn't have anticipated, and we journeyed together with generosity for the risk of participating. The result is a kind of vulnerable rough beauty."
— Dr. Jenn Stephenson, PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation

”Such a brilliant idea. The piece is intimate and deeply personal. It’s also driven by big, deep questions about human purpose and the much larger, mythic forces at work in all of our lives.”
— Marcus Youssef

“The divide between artist and audience becomes increasingly blurred, dynamizing the stage into a communal space for co-creation. If [this performance] proves anything, it’s that new theatrical places will continue to be explored as artists and audiences navigate the potentialities of the return to being together.”
— Derek Manderson, smART Magazine

“This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear is pushing theatre to its limits.”
— Ben Boddez, Range Magazine

“this is the first show i saw in a theatre after the start of the pandemic. i cried the whole time. it was other-wordly wonderful. this is a very special play (? event? community happening?). don’t!!! miss!!! it!!!”
— Elena Eli Belyea

“I can’t think of another work of art, let alone theatre, that makes it so easy to collectively consider the terrifying aspects of our changing world and warming planet without shame and panic as an underscore, and where instead of being a chore or embarrassment, audience participation truly makes you feel less alone.”
— Zoë Glassman

Playwright, co-creator, dramaturg.

In the not-so-distant future, the oceans have flooded the prairies. An old man and an old woman – played by fourteen-year-olds Lazlo Paradis and Iris James – live together in a lighthouse, surrounded by a sea that was once Saskatchewan. They’ve been here one hundred years, ever since the flood washed away their homes and families. Twelve kids escaped the destruction in a homemade boat. A century later, only two remain. With nothing but themselves and their memories for company, these two old friends go about their routine and reflect on their remarkable lives, preparing for another great change on the horizon.

The Last Children is a fantastical exploration of the very real climate crisis. The performance mixes theatre and film; reality and fiction; past, present, and future. Created by an ensemble of Regina youth working with award-winning professional artists from across the prairies, the show is a deeply-felt, strangely-dreamed window into how it really feels to be a kid (or an adult) in these exceptionally anxious times.

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Produced by Curtain Razors Theatre.
Directed by Judy Wensel.
Co-created with Judy Wensel, Iris James, and Lazlo Paradis.

Presented by Curtain Razors Theatre at The Artesian, Regina, SK, October 20-30 2021. Sold-out run.

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LIVE PERFORMANCE CREDITS:

Set and props design by Amber PB and Jeff Meldrum.
Composition and sound design by Gilles Zolty.
Costume design by Matthew Donnelly.
Lighting design and technical direction by Devon Bonneau.
Projection design by Ian Campbell.
Stage management by Johanna Arnott.
Production assistance by Sarah Bergbusch.
Technicians: Aren Okemaysim, Michael Wanless.

Performed by Iris James and Lazlo Paradis.

SHORT FILM CREDITS:

Direction of photography, editing, and digital effects by Ian Campbell.
Composition and sound design by Gilles Zolty.
Art direction by Amber PB and Jeff Meldrum.
Costumes by Matthew Donnelly, Amber PB, Jeff Meldrum, and Judy Wensel.
Additional sound recording by David Roman.

Performed by: Liv Aitkin-Ochitwa, Olive Crozier, Ray Crozier, Oliver Dunn, Nico Huck Fraser, Rye Huck Fraser, Iris James, Drake Kujaneck, Azalea Kujaneck, Sabine Manera, Ruby Manera, Aren Okemaysim, Ever Olaechea Payant, Lazlo Paradis, Chaz Peppler, Josephine Wensel, Louisa Wensel.

FULL PROJECT CREDITS HERE.

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Supported by Canada Council for the Arts, SK Arts, National Theatre School of Canada (Theatre Engaging Communities Program), Globe Theatre, Fada Dance, and Artesian on 13th.

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”Young activists like Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement have shown us with great moral courage that climate change is a crime a few companies are perpetrating against children and future generations, and this is a lesson that the creators of The Last Children take to heart. This dreamy, soulful production gives voice to the hopes and fears of the climate generation, and then opens a conversation for audiences to take courage together, inspiring us to shape our own stories of resilience, wonder, and perhaps growing old in some lighthouse after we've weathered this storm.”
— Dave Mitchell, Canadian Institute for Climate Choices

”The Last Children is a fantastic journey into a possible future, one that opens a space for child-centered dialogue on the climate crisis and a touchstone for family conversation. Film narration by a young child rings a bell in our hearts and sets the stage for the teen-led play to follow. The unique process that fed into this play has clearly empowered youth and children's voices, as they struggle with their future in a chaotic world created by their parents, grandparents and ancestors.”
— Tanya Dahms, University of Regina

I think if Edward Gorey and Samuel Beckett had been guests in the audience they would have sprung to their feet in enthusiastic applause at its close. I would have joined them!
— Dr. Kathryn Ricketts, University of Regina

Playwright.

Blair makes videos. Blair needs a project. Blair has a webcam. Blair has some friends. Blair’s friends are trying new things.

Premium Content is a play about art, consent, polyamory, and the internet. It’s a play about boundaries: in relationships, in art, and the grey space where they converge. It’s a play about what living online is doing to our minds and feelings. It’s a play about trying really hard to be really cool.

The production is staged with rotating casting. 6 actors each learned 3 of the play’s 5 roles, for a different casting combination with different gender dynamics every performance. Tyler Klein Longmire’s video design incorporates live video from 4 cameras and live motion-caption animation.

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Produced by Major Matt Mason Collective.
Directed by Geoffrey Simon Brown.

Premiere production at Pumphouse Theatre, Calgary AB, June 21-30, 2018. Sold out run.

Remounted by One Yellow Rabbit at High Performance Rodeo, GRAND Studio Theatre, Calgary AB, Jan 21-25, 2020. Sold-out run.

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Production design by Alison Yanota.
Animation and projection design by Tyler Klein Longmire.
Sound design by Tori Morrison.
Stage management by Meredith Johnson.
Intimacy direction by Alexis Lerigny.
Photos by Ty Carson.

Acting company: Mikaela Cochrane, Zoë Glassman, Vanessa Jetté, Evan Medd, Jay Northcott, Mike Tan, Joe Perry.

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Finalist in the 2018 Alberta Literary Awards.
Shortlisted in the 2017 Alberta Playwriting Competition.
Developed at the 2016 Citadel Theatre Playwrights Forum.

Supported by Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Calgary Arts Development, City of Calgary, One Yellow Rabbit, High Performance Rodeo, and Quickdraw Animation Society.

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“Major Matt Mason Collective’s production of Premium Content is a unique, unconventional experience… A production this reckless and inventive deserves to run for months with people returning not once but three or four times.”
— Louis B. Hobson, National Post/Calgary Herald

“Premium Content is a bold, refreshing play about personal boundaries and breaching personal boundaries. What is free and what is not free? Rigorous in form and intellectually stimulating, the young characters in Walker's play live on the edge of their desires, bringing us into a world that is as up to date as tomorrow.”
— Colleen Murphy

Playwright.

A digital sequel to Premium Content.

Haunted by their transgressive actions and excommunicated by their friends, Blair tries to heal their mind and reinvent their creative practice through an extreme act of artistic self-abnegation.

A unique, completely live mixed-reality performance, 366 Days plunges us into a hallucinatory virtual world where art and life are indistinguishable. Hurt loved ones have their say, dead cats come back to life, and the paralyzing aftereffects of trauma are brought to surreal digital light.

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Produced by Major Matt Mason Collective.
Directed by Geoffrey Simon Brown.

Presented online on a custom-built website, Nov 11-13, 2021.
Performed live from multiple cities across Canada.

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Animation and digital system design by Tyler Klein Longmire.
Set and lighting design by Lauren Acheson.
Sound design by Tori Morrison.
Costume design by Whittyn Jason.
Website design by Kyle Hinton.
Stage management by Meredith Johnson.

Cast: Mikaela Cochrane, Vanessa Jetté, Evan Medd, Jay Northcott, Mike Tan.

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Supported by Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Quickdraw Animation Society.

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”Here’s a strange, unsettling thought: We are all hybrid creatures. That’s how we have to live now, forever straddling the live and the digital, not fully existing in one world or another. Are we then our own artistic creations, our own live-streamed works of art? Discuss. There’s a play about that — by David Gagnon Walker, directed by Geoffrey Simon Brown — opening online this week. Or, wait, is it a play?”
— Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

A STRANGE VICTORY PERFORMANCE
Writer, performer, producer.

ENTRANCES is an artistic research project on the relationship between writing and performing.

Dance artist Lin Snelling and writer David Gagnon Walker perform a digital duet from their respective homes, accompanied and live-mixed by multimedia designer Tori Morrison. Fusing techniques from dance, theatre, literary poetry, and digital performance, they work through a suite of texts by David that each begin with the phrase “Sarah walks into a room”. Lin and David “play Sarah” together. They move, speak, and type through and around the poems in an improvised score, simultaneously responding to the existing texts and generating new written and physical material. An investigation of the nature and manifestations of creative thought, the performance also maps the complex experience of being isolated in a body, a mind, and a room during this strange time in human history. Responding to each other through the shimmering intimacy of digital connection, the artists work to articulate how thinking feels and what feelings do.

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Created and performed by Lin Snelling, Tori Morrison, and David Gagnon Walker.

Writing and dancing by David Gagnon Walker.
Dramaturgy and dancing by Lin Snelling.
Video design and live mixing by Tori Morrison.

Produced by Strange Victory Performance.

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Presented online by ReLoCate as part of The Experiment, a Calgary-based contemporary dance series. August 6-8, 2021.

Developed as part of Good Women Dance Collective’s Creative Incubator residency. May 2021.

Ongoing development.

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Supported by Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Edmonton Arts Council, Good Women Dance Collective, and ReLoCate.

Playwright.

A social media CEO and his spiritual advisor are on a forest retreat, working to develop new technology for communicating with the natural world. An inventor and her bear live in the same woods, and are working on the same thing. Both their devices work. Sort of.

Nothing but Flowers is a play about the twin human delusions of loneliness and grandeur. It’s about the blurry line between humans and the natural world. It’s about our need for connection and the various technologies — language, relationships, the internet — we’ve invented to achieve it.

Video excerpt on this page (first image).

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Initially developed at the 2018 Banff Playwrights Lab.
Further developed at the National Theatre School of Canada.

Workshop production as part of the New Words Festival.
April 29-May 4, 2019.
Studio Hydro-Québec, Monument-National, Montréal QC.

Direction by Rose Plotek.
Dramaturgy by Andrea Romaldi.
Set and props design by Erika Parra Bernal.
Costume design by Hannah Fisher.
Lighting design by Hannah Kirby.
Sound design by Samuel Boucher.
Video design by Pedro Melão-Ferreira.
Stage management by Gloria Mok.
Production management by Claire Bourdin.
Technical direction by MacKenzie Poole.
Assistant stage management and roomba driving by Aurora Torok.

Cast:
Sophie Dubé
Kajsa Engel-Wood
Jesse Lapointe
Evelyn Wiebe
Jake Wilkinson.

Photos by Maxime Côté.

(Scroll down for more photos.)

A STRANGE VICTORY PERFORMANCE
Writer, performer.

EVERYBODY’S EVERYBODY’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY was a collaborative writing and performance experiment. For 24 hours, I worked across two public Google Docs. Using every response in a Google Doc anyone could contribute to anonymously, I wrote a new text in a Google Doc anyone could see. After 24 hours, I read the 40-min result on Instagram Live. An original text written with 61 anonymous collaborators, performed live online near the beginning of the age of social distancing.

More information and full text here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yuYDW4wExG7dw6feUNV_VpUDDFp0WgpAJBXjquZc0wg/edit?usp=sharing

Presented by Verb Theatre April 1-2, 2020, as part of their Blue Light Festival of online performance.

STRANGE VICTORY PERFORMANCE + ROYAL PARTICLE PRODUCTIONS
Co-creator, performer.
Co-created with Kerttu Pussinen and Tori Morrison.

Development residency:
Cirko Centre for New Circus, Helsinki, Finland
July 23-August 4, 2019

Upcoming development residency:
Subtopia, Stockholm, Sweden
March 2021

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An interdisciplinary performance combining theatre, dance, and contemporary circus.

Kerttu is a contemporary circus performer.
Tori is a multimedia designer.
David writes and talks.

What are our core beliefs about ourselves and our society?
What if they turn out not to be true?
How do we adapt?
Can people change?
How are we to live with ourselves?
How are we to live?

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There’s a part I like in this movie I like. It has Meryl Streep in it and Chris Cooper. And Chris Cooper is telling Meryl Streep about orchids. And how amazing it is that each orchid has adapted to attract a specific pollinator. How he thinks that’s like a love story. How adaptation is amazing and how it gives him hope. And Meryl Streep says something like “yeah but it’s not so easy for humans. Because plants don’t have memory. They just move on to the next thing. For us, adapting is almost shameful. It’s like running away.”

Creator, performer.

73-hour site-specific & online performance.

Presented by Common Ground Arts Society at Found Festival.
A residential apartment, Edmonton AB, June 22-25, 2017.

Photos by Mat Simpson.
Web design by Tynan Boyd.

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I stayed in an apartment for 72 hours.
A brought 3 days of food and a laptop and a printer and some books I thought might be helpful.
I livestreamed myself from my laptop for the duration.
During those 72 hours, I wrote and rehearsed a new 60 min performance.
I worked in a public Google Doc.

After 72 hours, I invited an audience into the apartment (as many people as could fit) and performed the resulting work.
This performance was also livestreamed from my laptop.
It was about transparency and mystery and friendship and process.
It wasn’t recorded, and will never happen again.

Thanks to everybody who came to that living room that day.
We had a nice time.

Dramaturg and Co-Playwright.

Created with 2b Theatre and the National Theatre School of Canada.
Directed by Anthony Black and Christian Barry.
October 23-28, 2017.
Studio Hydro-Québec, Monument-National, Montréal QC.

Text by Anthony Black and David Gagnon Walker, with the ensemble.
Set and costume design: Kita Mendolia.
Lighting design: Adam Walters.
Video design: Rebecca Durocher.
Sound design: Jessie Potter.
Stage management: Meghan Froebelius.
Production management: Cosette Pin.
Technical direction: Crystal Chettiar.
Photos by Maxime Côté.

Cast: Qianna MacGilchrist, Michael Chiem, Eva Foote, Charlotte Dennis, Kenzie Delo, Jake Wilkinson, Shauna Thompson, Simon Gagnon, Gabriel Richardson, Rosie Tremblay-Johnston, Robert Dunsmore-Van Wart, Kathleen MacLean, Cara Krisman, Christopher Mejaki.

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A teenage girl starts uploading YouTube videos predicting dire geopolitical events. Her predictions start coming true. Is she a prophet? A terrorist? A scared, confused kid?

The Observed Flight of Birds, created by the 2018 class of the National Theatre School with 2b Theatre and David Gagnon Walker, asks what information we can trust and how we decide to trust it. Intersecting stories follow people in a society falling precipitously into chaos as they try to make sense of a new world order.

Dramaturg.

Royal Particle Productions.
Contemporary circus show created with Kerttu Pussinen.

La fabrique des petites utopies (Grenoble, France), August 2018.
Fringe World (curated series), Perth, Australia, Jan-Feb 2019.
Adeleide Fringe (curated series), Adeleide, Australia, Feb-March 2019.
Cirko Centre, Helsinki, Finland, July-August 2019.

Written and performed by Kerttu Pussinen.
Lighting and sound design by Tori Morrison.

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A young woman is having an emotional crisis.
She meets a fish who wants to help.
By teaching her about particle physics.
Makes sense, right?

Particle # B is a high-flying exploration of our uncertain universe and our strange place in it. A spiritual journey through quantum reality combining circus, theatre, and dance.

For all ages.

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Fringe World Weekly Award (Circus), Perth.

”Go subatomic and marvel at the strange and beautiful quantum realm, where particles behave in unexpected ways and dance like nobody is watching … it’s incredibly versatile and takes on a whole new dimension as we zoom out for a spectacular astronautical acrobatic finale.”
— Clare Peddie, The Advertiser (Adelaide)

Playwright.

First production by Dirt Buffet Theatre.
Directed by Ben Gorodetsky.
Westbury Theatre, Edmonton AB. January 27 – February 7, 2016.
Programmed as part of Chinook Series.

Remounted at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival, August 11-21, 2016.

Production design by Cheyenne Sykes.
Photos by Marc J. Chalifoux.

Premiere cast (pictured): Miranda Allen, Nancy McAlear.
Remount cast: Philip Geller, Carmen Nieuwenhuis.

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A doomed couple processes the wreckage of their relationship in a surreal, poetic dreamscape. The highly physical premiere production combined realist performance, object theatre, and contemporary dance.

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“Thelonious Monk had a title for this show, Ugly Beauty. Imagine an irreverent breakup of two anonymous lovers, deconstructed into a random collage of dramatic vignettes, insinuations of dance, dialogues and monologues, repetitions, even a tiny self-referential moment when they turn to the audience wondering if they’re entertaining us.”
— Roger Levesque, Edmonton Journal

“BEST PHYSICAL THEATRE SHOW OF THE FRINGE FESTIVAL … An unnamed couple has a drinking problem – and that’s the setting for a surreal and darkly funny show filled with circular and frustratingly half-finished thoughts and sentences, interspersed with movement. Its sheer weirdness avoids triggering the minefield of clichés so commonly found in other depictions of this mundane, bleakly commonplace situation.”
— Mel Priestley, Gigcity.ca

Playwright.

Developed at the National Theatre School of Canada.
Dramaturgy by Jonathan Garfinkel.

April 2018 workshop cast: Chip Chuipka, Mary Harvey, James Loye, Alex Petrachuk, Julie Trépanier.

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Gordon has lived in an abandoned warehouse for 30 years. Lou and Laurie have been there for two. Lisa just moved in. Owl is 300 000 years old. Everything ends tonight. Blurring lines between naturalism, surrealism, performance art, and documentary theatre, The Big Ship considers the war on drugs from two different global perspectives, exploring how the desire to feel better and the impulse to self-destruct so often intertwine in our increasingly precarious world.

“I just want to say
I think everyone is basically good
And everyone wants to do good
Even when they’re not acting like it
And I think when people are in pain
We should help them
I think that’s an ok start”

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Winner of the 2018 Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award.
Longlisted for the 2018 Theatre503 Playwriting Award (London, UK).

“The dialogue really sang. The characters sang. What it has to say about existence is really powerful.”
— Jury member, Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award.

Playwright, performer.

First developed at the National Theatre School of Canada.
Dramaturgy by Brian Drader.

June 2017 Calgary workshop with Major Matt Mason Collective.
Direction by Joe Perry.
Cast: Geoffrey Simon Brown, Mikaela Cochrane.

Subsequent development residency at Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal.
Dramaturgy by Sarah Elkashef.

PWM workshop creative team:
Direction by Harrison Thomas.
Sound and video design by Tori Morrison.
Cast: David Gagnon Walker, Judy Wensel.

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A fallen angel and a human being have made a presentation to help humanity reckon with the spiritual toll of living in the Anthropocene. Pink Moon is that presentation. It transforms into a series of experimental performance vignettes. Then it morphs again into a participatory ritual with the audience, an open-ended attempt to make collective meaning and learn to live with the coming crisis.

There’s also a goose, a pug, and a wheel of fortune.

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Winner of the 2017 Wildfire National Playwriting Competition.
2nd runner up in the 2018 Toronto Fringe New Play Contest.

Librettist.

Electroacoustic operetta.

Toronto Laptop Orchestra.
Composed by Robert Taylor.

Workshop performance at Array Space, Toronto ON.
November 18, 2015.

Ensemble: Robert Taylor (laptop, singing bowl), Myriam Blardone (harp), Andy McNeilly (vibraphone), Rebecca Genge (soprano), Maeve Palmer (soprano), Loren Graziano (soprano).

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Three sopranos, a harp, a laptop, a vibraphone, and two singing bowls full of water weave their way through a deconstructed cubist portrait of urban green spaces and the things that happen there.

Conceived as part of Toronto Laptop Orchestra’s inaugural season of experimental music and performance.