Artistic Credits
Cast & Creative Team
Cliff Cardinal
Writer and Creator
Logan Cracknell
Lighting Designer
Jennifer Stobart
Stage Manager
Full cast will be announced at each performance.
Run Time
90 minutes
Intermission
No
Audience Advice
Please turn off all cellphones, photo/video cameras. All recording is prohibited.
The title of William Shakespeare’s AS YOU LIKE IT holds a double meaning that teasingly suggests this is a play to please all tastes. Is it possible? With his subversive updating of the Bard’s classic, cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal seeks to find out. The show exults in dark humour, difficult subject matter, and raw emotion. Bear these words in mind;
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head
– AS YOU LIKE IT, William Shakespeare
Cast will be announced at each performance.
About the Company
For 40 years, Crow’s Theatre has been a leading force in the Canadian theatre landscape, recognized for provocative and award-winning new theatre works that premiere in Toronto often followed by national and international tours. Crow’s Theatre is distinguished as a preeminent cultural destination for its far-reaching imagination, ideas, exchange, diversity, and grassroots belief that the arts are essential to healthy and thriving communities. In January 2017, following the completion of a $12 million capital campaign, Crow’s Theatre opened the doors to its first permanent home, Streetcar Crowsnest, at the corner of Carlaw Avenue and Dundas Street East. Led by Artistic and General Director, Chris Abraham and Executive Director Sherrie Johnson, Crow’s Theatre is located at the corner of Carlaw Avenue and Dundas Street East in Toronto’s east end. Our home at Streetcar Crowsnest is comprised of four venues for dynamic cultural and community programming: the Guloien Theatre (200 seats); Studio Theatre (80 seats); the Nada Ristich Studio Gallery (80 seats); the full- service Lobby Bar; as well as an onsite restaurant which can accommodate 60 seated indoors and 75 on the outdoor.
Biographies
Cliff Cardinal
Named by The Globe and Mail as a Canadian Cultural Icon in 2022, Cliff Cardinal is a polarizing writer and performer known for his black humour and compassionate poeticism. His AS YOU LIKE IT, A RADICAL RETELLING has been performed across Canada, was shortlisted for the Ontario Trillium Book Award, and was the recipient of the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama.
Other solo theatre productions including Stitch, Huff, Cliff Cardinal’s CBC Special, and (Everyone I Love Has) A Terrible Fate (Befall Them) have toured across Canada and won numerous awards. He is an associate artist at VideoCabaret where he develops his new work. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he studied playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada and fronts the hilarious and nefarious Cliff Cardinal and The Skylarks.
Cardinal’s first multi-character play, Too Good To Be True, opened VideoCabaret’s 2019 season at The Busy Street Theatre in Toronto with Cardinal himself directing. A workshop version of the script debuted at Summerworks ’13, where NOW Magazine said, “This captivating tale of an off-grid mother and her desperate children solidifies Cardinal as one of the most talented and intriguing writers in the country.”
Prior to premiering AS YOU LIKE IT, A RADICAL RETELLING, Cardinal was best known for his one-man play Huff, which he has performed over 200 times. This harrowing yet hilarious show about youth who abuse solvent, at high risk of suicide won the Buddies in Bad Times’ Vanguard Award for Risk and Innovation, two Dora Mavor Moore Awards (Outstanding Performance, Outstanding New Play), RBC’s Emerging Playwright Award, The Lustrum Award (which recognizes the greatest moments at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and was shortlisted for Amnesty International’s Freedom of Expression Award. The production garnered a five-star review in The Guardian Observer titled “a hard-hitting tour de force.” Huff has been published, translated into French, continues to tour, and was released as a podcast by the CBC.
Cliff Cardinal’s CBC Special, a songwriter/storyteller performance, toured festivals in Ottawa, Calgary, St. Catharines, through Canada’s North starting in Yellowknife with a stint at Theatre Kingston and won the Jon Kaplan Spotlight Award for the top performance at Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival.
Cliff Cardinal and The Skylarks’ first recording, This is Not a Mistake was released in 2016 and their follow up Gonna Be Fine was released in 2020, both are available online. The band’s third album Suicidal Valentine is out on Merlainen Music. The title track has risen to number six on the Indigenous Music Countdown.
William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling By Cliff Cardinal, launched the Crow’s Theatre 2021.22 season, following the pandemic shutdown. The run sold-out and the show was held over twice. The show was next presented by Mirvish Productions at the CAA Theatre as The Land Acknowledgement Or As You Like It in April 2023 and was also extended one week! The show has been touring since its premiere and continues to do so well into 2024.
Writer and Creator
Logan Raju Cracknell
Logan Raju Cracknell is a Toronto based theatre artist specializing in lighting design and live stream creation. Their work has taken them across the country, and they are truly excited to see what journeys lie ahead. Recent works include: Prodigal (The Howland Company, Crow's Theatre), William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal and Orphans for the Czar (Crow's Theatre), The Extinction Therapist (Theatre Aquarius), Alice in Wonderland (Bad Hats Theatre), BLACKOUT (The Musical Stage Company), Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill (Theatre Calgary), Dixon Road (The Musical Stage Company, Obsidian Theatre), As You Like It (Canadian Stage Company), and Concord Floral and Casimir and Caroline (Theatre Sheridan), and Fairview (Canadian Stage Company, Obsidian Theatre).
Lighting Designer
Jennifer Stobart
A veteran of live theatre, having stage managed over 180 professional productions, Jennifer has toured across Canada and the United States, to Dublin, Ireland, Brighton and London, England, Sydney and Perth, Australia, and Edinburgh, Scotland. Recent credits; our place with Cahoots Theatre & Theatre Passe Muraille; The Chronicles of Sarnia with Blyth Festival Theatre; (Everyone I Love Has) A Terrible Fate (Befall Them) with Video Cabaret and Crow’s Theatre; HUff at the Grand Theatre and Crows Theatre; The Land Acknowledgement with Mirvish Productions and Crow’s Theatre, The Brighton Festival and the Southbank Centre in London, England; As You Like It, a Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Peterborough, Ottawa, Burlington, and New York City. Upcoming she will tour British Columbia, and to Sydney, Australia. As always, she sends her love to her Mom.
Stage Manager
Staff Credits
Production & Program Team
Andrew Smith
Production Manager, Performing Arts
Georgia Jeffery
Assistant Technical Director
Kerry Stauffer
Managing Director, Events and Production
Tambry Kopp
Senior Program Manager
Kate King Wale
Program Delivery Specialist
Sharon Fish
Assistant Head Stage Carpenter
Kate Sunderland
Stage Carpenter
Matt Flawn
Head of Lighting
Pui Leung
Lighting Technician
Andrea MacMillan
Lighting Technician
Lyle Fish
Head of Sound
Michael Amstadt
Sound Technician
Carey Lees
Wardrobe Facilitator
Banff Centre is grateful to the following supporters for making this event possible
