Toronto, ON: Expect Theatre’s PlayME - the podcast that transforms Canadian plays into audio dramas - and Canada’s #1 podcaster, CBC Podcasts, announce a new partnership that will see the popular series joining the CBC Podcasts slate for its upcoming new season. PlayME’s first audio drama as part of the new partnership will be Prairie Nurse by Dora Mavor Moore Award-nominee Marie Beath Badian, which will be available in four episodes as of November 6 on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, and online at cbc.ca/playmeCBC and PlayMEpodcast.com. A trailer for the new season is available now. 

In total, five plays from some of Canada’s most notable playwrights will be freshly recorded as radio dramas for the new season, which is PlayME’s second. In addition to Prairie Nurse, the season will feature: Between Breaths by Governor General Award-winner and Newfoundland-based playwright Robert Chafe; What A Young Wife Ought To Know by Dora Award and Trillium Book Award-winner Hannah Moscovitch; The Fish Eyes Trilogy by Dora Award-winner Anita Majumdar; and Huff by award-winning writer Cliff Cardinal. Each play will be recorded in three episodes, followed by another episode that features an interview with the respective playwright. All four episodes for each work will be released at once.

The five works encompass a range of perspectives from coast to coast and include a diverse array of Canadian stories:

• Two Filipino nurses immigrating to the snow-covered prairies in the 1960s (Prairie Nurse);
• The final moments of the “Whaleman” of Newfoundland as he reflects on a life dedicated to rescuing trapped whales (Between Breaths);
• A young wife’s dilemma surrounding love, sex and fertility in the 1920s in Ottawa (What A Young Wife Ought To Know);
• A teen’s fury about consent, cultural appropriation and colonialism in Port Moody, B.C. (The Fish Eyes Trilogy);
• An unflinching look at brothers on a reserve who struggle with solvent abuse and suicide (Huff)

“We are great admirers of Expect Theatre’s PlayME, and the company’s commitment to telling diverse and uncompromising Canadian stories make it a perfect fit for CBC Podcasts,” said Leslie Merklinger, Senior Director of Audio Innovation, CBC Radio and Audio. “We're excited to add PlayME's award-winning selection of theatrical productions to our audio fiction collection, and look forward to sharing the new season with an even wider audience on the CBC Podcasts platform.”

Expect Theatre’s Co-Artistic Directors Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley added, “We are thrilled to be a part of CBC Podcasts’ audio fiction offer. Audio fiction is making a comeback thanks to the tremendous popularity of podcasts and audiobooks. PlayME is thrilled to serve up the best of Canadian theatre to an international podcast audience.”

Prairie Nurse launches the new PlayME season on November 6. Marie Beath Badian’s hit play was part of Factory Theatre’s season in Toronto this past spring. It has also been produced at Blyth Festival Theatre, Thousand Islands Playhouse and Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange. The cast features the actors from the Factory Theatre production, including: Mark Crawford, Belinda Corpuz, Layne Coleman, Catherine Fitch, Janelle Hanna, Isabel Kanaan, and Matt Shaw. Both the world premiere at Blyth in 2013 and the Factory theatrical production in the spring of 2018 were directed by Sue Miner.

The release dates for the four other plays will be announced in due course. A selection of 10 plays from PlayME’s back catalogue, such as Kat Sandler’s Bang Bang, Nicolas Billon’s Iceland and Hannah Moscovitch’s Bunny, are also available now at cbc.ca/playmeCBC.

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PlayME:

Since its inception in 2016, PlayME has transformed a variety of independent Canadian theatre productions into audio podcasts. With close to one million downloads in over 90 countries to date, PlayME is in the vanguard of facilitating international access to Canadian theatre and building an audience and appetite for it from all over the world (eight out of ten listeners is from outside Canada). PlayME is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

For “Drama on Demand,” tune in to PlayME at http://www.playmepodcast.com where the catalogue of podcasts can be heard.

Expect Theatre is an award-winning, Toronto-based company dedicated to producing cutting-edge, original, multi-disciplinary productions that explore modern urban life. Formed in 1998 by co-Artistic Directors Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley, Expect has a long track record of creating integrated theatre works, radio plays for CBC, viral videos and site-specific performance art installations. Works include Romeo/Juliet Remixed, Static, Awake, CBC Radio’s Tunnel Runners, AWAKE the film and the annual urbanNOISE festival. Mullin and Tolley launched PlayME - an online portal presenting audio podcasts of Canadian plays and related content - in 2016. http://www.expect.org , http://www.playmepodcast.com

From Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC Podcasts is a richly diverse collection of award-winning podcasts that engage, enlighten and entertain. CBC is the #1 podcaster in Canada, reaching more Canadians than any other podcast publisher. With more than 20 series in genres such as investigative reporting and true crime, comedy, human interest and audio fiction, CBC podcasts are downloaded 16 million times* per month.

*Source: Sumo Logic (Sept 2017 to April 2018).

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Media Refer: 

For Expect Theatre/PlayME: Dianne Weinrib – DW Communications   dw@dwcommunications.net  416-703-5479

For CBC Podcasts: Tanya Koivusalo – CBC Publicist  tanya.koivusalo@cbc.ca   416.205.8638

Interviews on request.

Web-sized photos attached.

High Rez & Web-Sized photos downloadable here and on the CBC Media Centre.

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