Mustard

What was your special toy or stuffy when you were little? When did you let it go? Did you? Why? Do you still have it? Why?  

Mustard was a comic-tragic play, that could be silly at times, but it was also about a lot of very serious and scary things, including divorce, alcoholism, suicide, mental health, teen pregnancy and growing up, which can be violent, tragic, funny, and magical all at once. At its core Mustard was a play about love: we were watching real people deal with real problems with real stakes, trying to find ways to love and be loved, and some of those people just happened to be magical.

The play was written by award-winning Canadian playwright, Kat Sandler. We met a mother and daughter on the verge of total breakdown. The other member of the household was the daughter's imaginary friend she’s had forever. We also met a boyfriend, and a couple of other wildly extraordinary folk who arrived with a crucial job to do. It was an action - packed three days! Mustard was filled with outrageous, gorgeous, wonder - and this isa golden commodity that can take practice to hold on to as we get older.

As the program’s first ever hybrid production (live and Livestreamed), Mustard aimed to connect our communities in times of uncertainty through the medium of live theatrical performance. There was both a digital and physical dramaturgy Hub and Engagement Space within the Theatre of the Arts and on the website for the performance, uwmustard.ca. These spaces aimed to provide context to our audience’s experience of the play and production, from research sources and themes of the work to the creative vision of the artistic team.