Inner Elder takes the audience on a journey of transformation through laughter and real-life memories of Gemini Award-winning Cree artist Michelle Thrush as she explores her own inner elder. Using a delicate blend of Bouffon and Indigenous clowning, this performance offers a magical experience in the theatre and an extraordinary vision of our world.

Use promo code ‘dream’ to save $5 on early bird tickets until March 15, 2019. 

★★★★ “A master storyteller […] Thrush’s recollection is so vivid, it sears itself into your consciousness.” – Calgary Herald

Credits:

Creator and performer: Michelle Thrush
Director: Karen Hines
Lighting/Scenic Designer: Sandi Somers
Composer: Sandy Scofield
Sound Designer: JP Lord Sound Design
Stage Manager & Lighting Director: Cimmeron Meyer
Producer: Grant Burns
Photo credit: Ben Laird

About the artists:

Karen Hines is an award-winning director, performer, writer, and a two-time finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Drama. Directing credits include Linda Griffiths’ Age of Arousal, as well as adult horror clowns Mump & Smoot, with whom she has toured across North America and overseas. Karen has performed extensively in Canadian stage, television and film; a Gemini nominee, spent three seasons on CBC’s Emmy Award-winning Newsroom and her own prize-winning short films featuring her dark stage persona Pochsy have screened on six continents. Karen’s latest solo play Crawlspace has enjoyed sold out runs from Toronto (Videofag, Soulpepper) to Vancouver (Boca del Lupo), and most recently at One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo. She is a National Magazine Award-winning writer for Swerve, and Crawlspace is being adapted through Telefilm as a feature film.

Michelle Thrush is best known as an actor in the film and television industry which she began more than thirty years ago. Since then she has been in such shows as North of 60, Arctic Air, Blackstone and most recently on Sky Tv’s newest series Tin Star. Her theatre involvement includes being one of the founding members, co-director, and actor in the ground breaking theatrical extravaganza Making Treaty 7. Directing Theatre Calgary’s 2018 season opener Honour Beat and writing and performing her newest solo show Inner Elder.  She is a multi award-winning actress and has used her profile to work with Indigenous youth across Canada for over twenty years. Her most grandest work of pride though is her two daughters which she admits is a co-production and her biggest teaching influence in her life.

Cimmeron Meyer is a theatre designer, arts administrator and production professional.  Her experience spans several companies and includes Managing Director at Quest Theatre,  Production Management and/or Technical direction at Festival of Animated Objects, The Old Trout Puppet workshop, One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre, Vertigo Theatre, Lunchbox Theatre and more recently Technical Director of the Banff Centre Opera Program in 2018.  Recent and upcoming design works include: Omagaamon (Waawaate Fobister), Twelfth Night  (Theatre Calgary),  Bakkahi (Stratford Festival). Cimmeron is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.  She dedicates her work to her daughter, Eve.