"Nighttime Adventures Across Canada: Journeying from Vancouver to Moncton"

The Theatre Zones biennale is set to return to Ottawa from September 8 to 13, 2025, transforming the city into a hub of francophone theatre in Canada. This year's event, produced by the National Arts Centre, promises a panorama of local and international stage voices.

The festival's programming includes creations, revivals, and emerging projects. One of the highlights of this year's event is the collective work titled Clear Nights, which will be presented for the first time on September 12 as part of the Zones théâtrales festival in Ottawa. Twelve dramatists participated in the creation of this piece, each writing a text of about ten minutes.

Louis-Philippe Roy, who represented Ottawa-Gatineau in February 2025, imposed an additional theme of winter solitude on the project. His text, tinged with his personal experiences, including illness and the madness of going out for a walk and stopping to observe, is one of the pieces included in Clear Nights.

The project began in July 2024 in Vancouver under the artistic direction of Mani Soleymanlou and Cory Haas. Each author in the project was given weekly individual meetings with Gabriel Plante and Danielle Le Saux-Farmer to discuss their progress and rewrite their texts. At the end of the project, a creation journal was set up where each author deposited extracts and sources of inspiration.

Beyond performances, Theatre Zones offers a space for meeting and reflection, including workshops, discussions, and labs. Around ten performances and seven original creations will be showcased during the festival. The festival also showcases works from francophone communities in minority situations, as well as productions from Quebec and internationally.

Louis-Philippe Roy wrote his text during nightfall and produced a text every day or two to explore different facets of himself. An idea was launched at the beginning of the project for a Canada notebook to travel from province to province, but it appears to have been lost along the way.

The Theatre Zones biennale has played a central role in the circulation of works and the development of francophone theatre since its inception in 2005. This year's event is no exception, as it promises to transform Ottawa into a hub of francophone theatre, offering audiences a unique opportunity to experience the best of francophone theatre from across the country and beyond.