Porte Parole was founded in 2000 by playwright Annabel Soutar and actor Alex Ivanovici as a local Montreal-based documentary theatre company. Its early plays, Novembre, 2000 Questions, Santé!, Montréal la blanche and Seeds were performed locally for English and French audiences and won the Company great acclaim as Montreal’s only documentary theatre troupe.
In 2008 Soutar received her first invitation from the Festival TransAmériques to create a documentary work, Import/Export, about a factory closure in Thetford Mines triggered by retail outsourcing to China.
Soutar’s epic trilogy, Sexy béton, about the collapse of the de la Concorde in Laval, toured around Quebec in 2011 and won Soutar a nomination for the prestigious Prix Michel Tremblay for playwriting in 2012.
In 2011-12 Soutar created an updated version of Seeds and partnered with acclaimed director Chris Abraham and Crow’s Theatre to produce the play’s Toronto premiere. Seeds – about the high stakes legal battle between Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser and Monsanto over GMOs – was performed at the 2013 Festival TransAmériques and went on to tour nationally to five provinces across Canada from 2013-17. It has since been seen by over 39,000 Canadians. Seeds was translated by Fanny Britt (Grains) and was presented at La Licorne in 2012. In 2019, Seeds will embark on its first US tour.
In 2013 Soutar received a high profile commission with Abraham to create a documentary play about water for the 2015 Toronto Pan Am/Para Pan Am Games. That work, The Watershed, earned Soutar recognition on The Globe & Mail’s Artists of the Year list for 2015. The Watershed was performed in 5 theatres across Canada in 2016-17. In 2015, the French-language version of The Watershed (Le Partage des eaux), also translated by Britt, was presented at Usine C in Montreal.
In parallel with The Watershed, Porte Parole produced a street installation about water called The Water Shed. Curated by creative director Alex Ivanovici, The Water Shed invites Canadians to have a personal conversation with the imagined ‘character’ of water in an intimate space designed by Jasmine Catudal.
Soutar’s play, Fredy, directed by Marc Beaupré, was performed at La Licorne in March 2016 to sold-out houses and great acclaim. The production will be remounted at La Licorne, Usine C and in 3 Maisons de la Culture in Montreal in 2017-18.
In 2014, Soutar invited Quebec actress Christine Beaulieu to write a new documentary play for Porte Parole about Hydro Quebec. That 5-part opus, J’aime Hydro, has been performed in Montreal at the 2016 Festival TransAmériques, at La Licorne, and at Usine C. J’aime Hydro was bought by the Just for Laughs Festival where it was performed again at Usine C in July 2017. In 2017-18, J’aime Hydro toured across Quebec, including a 2-week run at the Théâtre La Bordée in Québec City. In 2017 J’aime Hydro won “Best show of the year 2017” by the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre; Christine Beaulieu won the Prix Michel-Tremblay for J’aime Hydro – Best Dramatic Text; J’aime Hydro was nominated for the Conseil des arts de Montréal’s prestigious Grand Prix arts prize.
In its 2016-17 season Porte Parole took its first steps to provide online access to its plays. J’aime Hydro was streamed live (audio) during its runs at la Licorne and Usine C. In 2019, the Company produced its first podcast adaptation of the play, J‘aime Hydro – édition 2019.
In 2017-18, Soutar teamed up with actors Brett Watson and Alex Ivanovici and Siminovitch Prize winning director Chris Abraham, to create The Assembly – a thrilling theatrical response to the rise of extremism and tribalism in political discourse today. To date, The Assembly – Montreal (premiere at Crow’s Theatre in fall 2018) and L’Assemblée – Montréal (premiere at Théâtre ESPACE GO in the fall 2018) have been created. The Assembly – University of Maryland is in the midst of being created, as part of a residency at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Centre.
The Assembly is part of a long-term documentary theatre project that addresses political polarization and that will create new and specific content for each touring city. The Assembly – Montreal (premiere at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto in October 2018) is based on a dinner held in December 2017 where four “regular” people with very different political views debated the issues of immigration and free speech. The actors play these real life people whose conversations were recorded, transcribed and then edited to create a script. A French iteration, L’Assemblée – Montréal, premiered at Théâtre Espace Go in November 2018 with a different cast, characters/participants and script, and focused on the themes of Quebec national identity, reasonable accommodation and feminism.
For nearly two years, Annabel Soutar has been mentoring the stage artist François Grisé in his investigation of how Quebec society cares for its elderly. Directed by Alexandre Fecteau, this documentary play offers an intimate portrayal of a privately-run seniors’ residence and asks difficult questions about how we can improve the quality of life for the elderly. Grisé’s play Tout inclus will premiere the first three episodes in the fall 2019 at Montreal’s Théâtre La Licorne, followed by a tour around Quebec.
