double vie
In Development
Commissioned and presented as part of Nuits Claires, produced by the National Arts Centre at Zones Théâtrales Festival
September 12- 13, 2025
Workshop Presentation with Théâtre la Seizième
September 21, 2024
commissioned as part of the nuits claires project
Double Vie is a bilingual, text-based, interdisciplinary performance. Using soundscape, projection, and prose-like narrative in English and French, the show will explore how fantasy, kink and language can act as sites of rebirth, healing isolation and ancestral wounds.
In Double Vie, a nameless trans protagonist, plagued by paranoia and family ghosts, is mailed a cassette tape by a stranger. Through the explicit and transgressive instructions on the tape, they discover a portal to another self, existing in another timeline, in another culture. Infused with magical realism and analogue nostalgia, Double Vie probes the darkness in sexuality and cultural inheritance, asking if a new city, language, or erotic extreme can transform us.
Creative Team
Playwright & Co-leader: Anais West
Stage Manager & Co-leader: Alexa Fraser
Dramaturg: Joanna Garfinkel
Performers: Rae Takei & Elio Zarrillo
Projection Designer: Nancy Lee
Sound Designer: Matthew Tomkinson
Technical Director: Chengyan Boon
Surtitlist: Gabrielle Morin
Photography: Jamie Poh
Understudy: Kimberly Ho
'Nuits Claires' Dramaturgs: Danielle Le Saux-Farmer & Gabriel Charlebois Plante
French Language Consultation: Cory Haas
development
SUPPORTERS
Théâtre la Seizième, Zones Théâtrales & The National Arts Centre French Theatre.
nuits claires
project
Over the course of a year, 12 playwrights—1 per month—from Vancouver to Caraquet were chosen by 12 theatre companies to join a writing relay with mysterious rules, the main one being to write about and during the night. This show presents a collage of these writers’ nocturnal endeavours, compiled into one thrilling theatrical happening to celebrate the dreamers we are.
This major pan-Canadian theatre creation project, initiated by Mani Soleymanlou, artistic director of NAC French Theatre, and Cory Haas, artistic and managing director of Vancouver’s Théâtre la Seizième, began in July 2024. The final presentation, a compilation of the 12 scripts written during each month of this this collective venture, was unveiled at the 2025 edition of Zones Théâtrales and published by Éditions Prise de parole.