This Canada Day weekend, Reconciliation Theatre will be beginning its live Vancouver Island theatre tour in Nanaimo, featuring a touching and humorous coming-of-age story.
The Boy in the Treehouse, written by Anishinaabe playwright Drew Hayden Taylor, tells the fictional story of Simon, a boy who attempts a vision quest to reclaim his mother's Ojibway culture.
Directed by Pete Kutwayhat, Cree performance artist and filmmaker, Reconciliation Theatre's first performance is at Inclusion B.C.’s 2025 provincial conference in Richmond. Following this, a Vancouver Island tour will take place starting in Nanaimo on Canada Day weekend.
"They can expect a lot of laughs and some sombre moments between a father and son as they navigate dealing with the anniversary of their elder mother's death, and trying to work through that together," Kutwayhat said.
The show is intended for all audiences, he said, with universal themes of identity that can be easily consumed by multiple demographics.
"I think all of us as individuals want to know who we are, where we come from and so-forth."
Kutwayhat said as Indigenous theatre grows on Vancouver Island, it is beginning to develop its own practices, giving a voice to Coast Salish culture on the stage.
"I think for the most part, most Indigenous theatres are often at a national scale … So they struggle with pan-Indigenous tropes, and it's very much dominated by prairie culture."
This will be Kutwayhat's first time directing with Reconciliation Theatre, which is an Indigenous-led non-profit society with the stated purpose of producing live theatre through a reconciliation lens. Previous performances included Nice While it Lasted (2024), The Berlin Blues (2023) and True West (2022).
"I really appreciate to have been brought forward on board on this project, and me, being a new director and Reconciliation Theatre as a society in its infancy has been very accommodating of my inexperience," Kutwayhat said, "and if anything it's a place for new and developing actors, playwrights or anybody that's a theatre professional to grow and develop their skill – because as a company they're also growing and developing as well."
The play tour opens in Nanaimo at the OV Arts Centre from June 27-July 1. Next, audiences can view it in Campbell River (July 3), Courtenay (July 4), Ladysmith (July 16), and Victoria (July 25-27). Tickets can be purchased at www.reconciliationtheatre.ca.
