Busted Up: A Yukon Story
By Geneviève Doyon
Directed by Jessica Hickman // Original Music by Brooke Maxwell
Busted Up: A Yukon Story is set in Canada’s far north; home of 35,000 people, 200,000 caribou, 14 different First Nations and the beautiful midnight sun.
Six actors portray over 30 real-life Yukon characters who throughout the play share their stories of colonialism, natural resource extraction, racial discrimination and a deep love of the wild. The interactions of these characters evolve around relationships between indigenous people and settlers, the growing immigrant population, and the fast-paced changes Canada’s north is experiencing.
Open Pit Theatre spent 3 years developing Busted Up: A Yukon Story as part of The Yukon Verbatim Project, which consisted of gathering over 60 interviews from eight Yukon communities including Whitehorse. The words you will hear are the exact words as transcribed during the interviews without any alterations or additions. Each of the real-life characters featured in the play was consulted, invited to readings/shows, and ultimately gifted Open Pit Theatre the use of their words for this play.
““Verbatim theatre can be a tricky art form. Happily, Busted Up: A Yukon Story manages it awfully well. This clever, well-rehearsed show is an impressionistic overview of the Yukon experience based on 60-plus interviews. Busted Up doesn’t shy away from tough issues such as racism. At the same time, the 75-minute show - reflecting an impressively wide variety of voices - is brimming with humanity and heart.””
“Creators Geneviève Doyon and Jessica Hickman did an excellent job of getting a range of voices to contribute to this project: young and old, indigenous and non, new immigrants and old-timers, Whitehorse residents and folks in more rural communities. As a result, you get a real cross-section of experiences, perspectives and tensions that exist in the territory: environmental concerns versus resource-based economies; racism towards recent immigrants and indigenous people; that feeling of connection to land many people up there have (something I find is also common here on the West Coast) and the complexity of navigating that as a non-indigenous person, and so much more.”
PERFORMERS
2018 NORTHERN TOUR
Joel D. Montgrand
Caleb Gordon
Brenda Barnes
Geneviève Doyon
Nyla Carpentier
Justin Lapena
Roy Neilson
2020 BELFRY SPARK FESTIVAL
Joel D. Montgrand
Caleb Gordon
Brenda Barnes
Kaitlyn Yott
Christine Quintana
Lisa Goebel
2017 YUKON ART CENTRE PREMIERE
Joel D. Montgrand
Caleb Gordon
Brenda Barnes
Geneviève Doyon
Kaitlyn Yott
Dinah Gaston
Roy Neilson
CREW
CO-CREATOR, DIRECTOR, TOUR PRODUCER
Jessica Hickman
CO-CREATOR, PLAYWRIGHT, PERFORMER, TOUR PRODUCER
Geneviève Doyon
COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER
Brooke Maxwell
SET DESIGNER
Michel Gignac
COSTUME CO-ORDINATORS
Rosie Stuckless (Yukon Art Centre) & Odile Nelson (Northern Tour)
LIGHTING DESIGNERS
Brad Trenaman (Belfry Spark Festival) & Patrick Matheson (Yukon Art Centre)
STAGE MANAGERS
Becca Jorgensen (Belfry Spark Festival) & Lea Roy Bernatchez (Yukon Art Centre)
TECH DIRECTOR
Rebecca Smith (Yukon Art Centre)
Busted Up: A Yukon Story was created with support from The Yukon Art Centre, Canada Council for the Arts & The Canada 150 Fund. Touring was made possible through the assistance of Yukon Touring Artist Fund, Department of Tourism and Culture and Air North.