The Ark

Each season we devote a special period of time to theatre research and development. Last season’s exploration of the "Jacobethan" imagination led to many of the play selections for this season. A company of Canada’s finest professional actors, directors, playwrights, designers, historians and dramaturges, along with students from the National Theatre School of Canada, spends three weeks exploring a body of work for future programming. It all culminates in a single evening performance.

This season we are thrilled to have playwright Paula Wing provide the foundation for our investigation. Her play Vox Lumina is about the extraordinary and prolific 12th-century Abbess, Hildegard Von Bingen, a woman of irrepressible spirit and vibrant intellect who overcame social, cultural and gender barriers to achieve transcendence. Vox Lumina examines a period of Hildegard’s life where her faith and power are sorely tested.

Informing our research around this play will be readings from Hildegard’s writings and musical plays, as well as the rich and often neglected texts of the great medieval mystery cycles and Passion plays. This season’s Ark will also include other new works under consideration at the NAC, and is sure to cast an amazing light on what are erroneously called The Dark Ages." ¸

"We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a HOME. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light." — Hildegard Von Bingen

Generously supported by
The Cyril & Dorothy, Joel & Jill Reitman Family Foundation