I started a thousand and one versions of this message by trying to convince you as much as I could that the TNO is ready for the beginning of the artistic season. I even tried to be funny by including a bunch of questionable plays on words involving distance and distancing just to try to keep it light.

Because: “The show must go on.”

Right?

But I erased the words, the sentences, the paragraphs.

Because I want to talk to you, really talk to you.

And the truth is that we don’t know everything.
The truth is that we sometimes have vertigo.
The truth is that we doubt ourselves. Often.
Every day and in all of the decisions we take.
We search. We find. We celebrate. We embark. We deflate. We fall back. We change our minds.
We ask ourselves questions.
About the meaning of what we do.
For whom?
Why?
How?
With or without an audience?
In person or virtually?
This season or the next?
Responsible or reckless?
Safe or dangerous?
Interesting or boring?
Useful or useless?

Like all of us, the TNO is sensitive to the world around us.

In the face of all of the changes we’re facing, you no doubt won’t be surprised that things will be a little different here this year too.

Right?

The most important thing for us this season is keeping theatre ALIVE in our community despite everything happening around us. It’s to stay connected to one another. It’s for our solitudes to be solidary. It’s that little moments of theatricality can humbly allow us all together to cultivate our empathy, our benevolence, our resilience when we’re facing a world desperately in need of them. But, it’s also those moments that can nourish our sense of wonder which is, in my humble opinion, just as important.

So, this fall, we’ve developed alternative and unpretentious programming that will spotlight spontaneity and voices from home. We’ve prepared a few intimate encounters but, especially, we’re inviting you to discover, in a few different ways, what behind the scenes of theatrical creation. To see newborn works grow. To be a witness to creative processes that are still fragile. Maybe, it’s a way for us to share our vulnerabilities with you?

This season won’t have an official launch, no grand announcement. Projects will be announced in fragments, from month to month, to keep you on your toes yes, but, let’s be frank, it’s to give us the leeway to adapt and react as the pandemic continues to evolve.

We hope that you’ll tag along for this adventure, be it side by side or at a safe distance.

See you very soon,

Marie-Pierre and the TNO team