A PUBLIC READING
New Translation Canada | Nouvelle Traduction Canada in association with Touchstone Theatre
GRANITE
By Mishka Lavigne
Translated to English by David Gagnon Walker
Translated from Granite
“Plays that linger, that evoke images we can’t shake are the kind of plays we revisit to better understand our fears and the difficult truths that are easier to sweep away than confront.” – QWF Playwriting Prize Jury
Granite is the first play of Mishka Lavigne’s new “Borealis – Triptych”. Reaching out across the country, the triptych explores the tension and anguish between the supernatural, nature, and human structures. From a rickety old house where a multigenerational line of women live, to a father and daughter at a lakeside fire tower, to a botanist in a northern research station – the fires burn, the past haunts, and the early winter dark threatens to bury it all under the snow.
There is the house in the forest, where the women live. There is the quarry where stones are mined, where the men work. There is the white moose, among the trees. And there is she who vanished.
WHERE
ADDRESS
Central Library, 350 West Georgia Street
DATE
May 4, 2027
TIME
6PM - 8PM
Mishka Lavigne (she / her) is a playwright, screenwriter, and literary translator. Her plays have been developed and performed in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, Haiti, and Mexico. Her play “Havre”, created at La Troupe du Jour (Saskatoon) received the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2019. “Copeaux”, produced by Théâtre de Dehors (Ottawa) was awarded the same prize in 2021, as well as the Prix Jacques-Poirier. “Murs”, initially produced as a podcast by Transistor Médias, Créations In Vivo and the Théâtre Populaire d’Acadie, received rave reviews in France and was produced in 2023.
Mishka also writes in English. Her play “Albumen”, produced by TACTICS in 2019 (Ottawa), received the QWF Playwriting Prize and her play “Shorelines” was staged (TACTICS) in 2023. As a translator of both French and English, Mishka has more than twenty credited translations of theatre, prose and poetry.
David Gagnon Walker is a writer, performer, and translator born in Edmonton and based in Toronto. His work has been performed and developed in cities across Canada, and through residencies in Sweden, Finland, France, Australia, and the USA. David’s play This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear has toured widely and is published by Playwrights Canada Press. His newest show, “I Would Prefer Not To”, premiered in January 2026 at High Performance Rodeo. Other recent projects include “Premium Content” (Major Matt Mason Collective), “The Last Children” (Curtain Razors Theatre), and the English translation of Gabrielle Chapdelaine’s “The Retreat” (Imago Theatre). David is a graduate of the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada.