Red Phone at Harstad
Conceived by co-artistic directors Sherry J Yoon and Jay Dodge, with technology by Carey Dodge, Red Phone is a phone conversation unlike one you’ve ever had. Part theatre and part social intervention, Red Phone is an audience-to-audience performance that utilizes the intimacy of a phone call.
The experience takes place between two hand-crafted, fully enclosed phone booths outfitted with an antique red phone and an integrated teleprompter. An unseen operator prompts two audience members to engage in a five-minute conversation. The act of having the conversation with an unseen stranger provides an anonymity that adds to the intimacy of the performance, encouraging participants to be the actor in their own theatrical experience. Red Phone is a one-of-a-kind performance where anyone can engage in some of the most urgent, touching, thought provoking conversations written by writers from many nations and in many languages.
Featured in Harstad are eight writers: alongside the Boca del Lupo’s Co artistic directors, Sharon Bala, Keith Barker, Ivan Coyote and Kevin Loring, Artistic Director of Indigenous Theatre at the National Arts Centre of Canada, and premiering two new scripts by Danish writer Kasper Munk and Sami writer Siri Broch Johansen.
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IT WAS A GIFT by SHARON BALA from Newfoundland, Canada
Sharon Bala’s bestselling debut novel, The Boat People, won the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. It was a finalist for Canada Reads 2018, the 2018 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. The Boat People is on sale worldwide with translations on the shelves or forthcoming in French, German, Arabic, and Turkish. In 2017 Sharon won the Writers’ Trust/ McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story “Butter Tea at Starbucks” and had a second story on the long-list. She is a member of The Port Authority, a St. John’s writing group. Visit her online at sharonbala.com.
GOODBYE MY LOVE by KEITH BARKER from Northwestern Ontario, Canada
Keith Barker is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario. He is a playwright, actor, and director from Northwestern Ontario. Keith is the Director of the Foerster Bernstein New Play Development Program at the Stratford Festival, and the former Artistic Director at Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto. He is the winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Playwrights Guild’s Carol Bolt Award for best new play. Keith was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for English Drama in 2018 for his play, This Is How We Got Here. He received a Saskatchewan and Area Theatre Award for Excellence in Playwriting for his play, The Hours That Remain, as well as a Yukon Arts Award for Best Art for Social Change.
But I am thinking about the creation by SIRI BROCH JOHANSEN/JUHO-SIRE from Deatnu – Tana
Lea Deanus eret. Son lea girječálli, lávdedáiddár ja lávlu ja bargá guovtti gillii, davvisámegilli ja dárogilli. Sutnje geigejuvvui Ibsenbálkkášumi 2025 Per Hansen – En trofast mann/Oskkáldas almmái ovddas. Son lea ožžon Sámeráđi girjjálašvuođabálkkašumi guktii, Sárá beaivvegirjji ovddas 2012:s ja Mun lean čuoigi ovddas 2016:s. Su ođđaseamos almmuhus lea govvagirji Ujus Unni, mii almmuhuvvui guovvamánu 2024. Juho-Sire lea Drámatihka dálu viessodrámatihkkár 2024-2026, ja sus lea Stáhta dáiddárstipeanda drámatihkkárin 2024-2028. Su boahttevaš álgočájálmas lea ođđajagemánus 2026 Oulun teatteri váldolávddis Ovlá operain.
Comes from Deatnu – Tana. She is a writer, stage artist and singer and works bilingually in Northern Sami and Norwegian. She was awarded the Ibsen prize 2025 for Per Hansen – A faithful man/Oskkáldas almmái. She has been awarded the Sami Council’s literature prize twice, in 2012 for the book Sárá beaivegirji/Sara’s diary, in 2016 for the book Mun lean čuoigi/I am a skier. Her most recent publication, Ujus unni – det sjenerte multebæret, was published in February 2024. Johansen is house playwright at Dramatikkens hus 2024-26, and has the Norwegian State’s Artist Scholarship as a playwright 2024-28. Her next opening night is in January 2026 at Oulun teatteri with the opera Ovlá.
JAG ALSKAR by IVAN COYOTE from Yukon, Canada
Ivan Coyote is a writer and storyteller. Born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, they are the author of thirteen books, the creator of four films, six stage shows, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Coyote’s books have won the ReLit Award, been named a Stonewall Honour Book, been long-listed for Canada Reads, and been shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize for non-fiction, and the Governor General’s Award for non-fiction twice. In 2017 Ivan was given an honorary Doctor of Laws from Simon Fraser University. Coyote’s stories grapple with the complex and intensely personal topics of gender identity, family, class, and queer liberation, but always with a generous heart, and a quick wit. Ivan’s stories manage to handle both the hilarious and the historical with reverence and compassion, and remind us all of our own fallible and imperfect humanity, while at the same time inspiring us to change the world. Ivan’s 13th book, Care Of, was released in June 2021 by McClelland and Stewart.
HEISENBERG PRINCIPLE co-written by JAY DODGE from British Columbia, Canada
An inventor, creator and entrepreneur, Jay’s imagination for the what, how and why of theatre defies conventional boundaries. During his tenure, the company has won the peer-assessed Alcan Performing Arts Award, and several Jesse Richardson Theatre Awards including seven nominations for the Critic’s Choice Award for Innovation and the Patrick O’Neill Award for best anthology with Plays2Perform@Home. Jay is a passionate set and video designer with Jessie Richardson Awards in both of those categories as well as a published playwright including a contribution to Boca del Lupo’s Red Phone project. His artistry is one of innovation and daring and his one man show, PHOTOG. featured interactive video, stunt rigging and verbatim text, touring to World Stage, Prismatic, Festival Trans Amerique and PuSh. Having served as President on the national board of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Jay also has special interest in creative space making including as co-founder of celebrated colocation space PL1422, co-founder of the Granville Island Theatre District. Happiest when he is tinkering in his studio with collaborators from a diverse range of disciplines and backgrounds, the impact of Jay’s influence is quiet yet profound.
AFTERMATH by KEVIN LORING from Lytton First Nation, Canada
Kevin Loring is an accomplished Canadian playwright, actor and director and was the winner of the Governor General’s Award for English Language Drama for his outstanding play, Where the Blood Mixes in 2009. The play explores the intergenerational effects of the residential school system. It toured nationally and was presented at the National Arts Centre in 2010, when Loring was serving as the NAC’s Playwright in Residence.
A Nlaka’pamux from the Lytton First Nation in British Columbia, Loring created the Songs of the Land project in 2012 in partnership with five separate organizations in his home community. The project explores 100-year-old audio recordings of songs and stories of the N’lakap’amux People. Loring has written two new plays based on his work with the community including Battle of the Birds, about domestic violence and power abuse, and The Boy Who Was Abandoned, about youth and elder neglect.
A versatile artist and leader Loring has served as the co-curator of the Talking Stick Festival, as Artist in Residence at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre, as Artistic Director of the Savage Society in Vancouver, as a Documentary Producer of Canyon War: The Untold Story, and as the Project Leader/Creator, and Director of the Songs of the Land project in his home community of Lytton First Nation.
MORGANA by KASPER MUNK from Harstad, Norway
Kasper Munk (b.1979) is a danish playwriter living in Harstad. Kasper finished his training as a dramatist at Århus Teater in 2007. He has worked with the Norwegian Centre for New Playwriting (Dramatikkens Hus). His play Circus (Sirkus) was produced in Harstad in 2023.
HEISENBERG PRINCIPLE co-written by SHERRY J YOON from British Columbia, Canada
Sherry J Yoon, is currently the Artistic Director of Boca del Lupo in Vancouver BC. As theatre director her passion for creating new performance through collaborative pursuits has enable her to create work in theatres, intimate performance installations and large spectacle site specific work. Through co creation, collaboration, partnerships and commissions she has premiered and toured festivals and venues across Canada, Europe and Latin America. During Sherry’s tenure the company has received numerous awards including the Alcan Performing Arts Award, Jessie Richardson awards, and the Critics Choice Award for Innovation. She is currently working on an interactive installation about climate change and our relationship to the guilt and isolation that people carry, involving the audience charging a battery on a stationary bicycle. Sherry also participates in multiple local and national arts advisories, and has launched the 3.7% – and advocacy group to support emerging and established BIPOC women and non binary artists in leadership, and most recently Stop Asian Hate an initiative that has galvanized Asian Canadian Leadership in the performing arts across Canada. She is also a freelance director and has recently been honored as a finalist for the prestigious Siminovitch Award for directing.