Daniel Macivor premieres new show at Calgary’s HPR: ‘Your Show Here’

Another world premiere performance from one of Canada’s most celebrated playwrights lands at Calgary’s High Performance Rodeo to cap off the first month of the year.

It’s part tutorial, part chapter ending, part personal dive into the history of playwright Daniel MacIvor — and a very special playwright relationship. He calls Your Show Here an ending and says this solo piece marks “the last solo I do in this way.”

MacIvor is a legendary Canadian theatre-maker, known for House, Here Lies Henry, Monster and more. He says this new show is built around transition and grief, shaped by his decades-long creative partnership with the late Daniel Brooks.

“We’ve made eight solo shows… but he passed away after we started discussing this show. So, I kind of finished it without him.”

He says Brooks is still directing Your Show Here “in absentia.” And he credits a whole team for helping carry Brooks’ influence into the work, including Kate Brooks, Mel Hague, and Christian Barry.

MacIvor says the show’s title comes directly from that shift. “Why it’s called Your Show Here is because now you can make your own show, and I’m going to tell you how.”

That includes what he calls a live set of instructions built inside the performance.

“So I give you pointers on what you need to do to make a show. So as we’re going through the show, I’m explaining to you how you can make your show, and I don’t have to do this anymore.”

He says the spark for this piece arrived in a moment he couldn’t ignore. After attending Brooks’ shiva, he was flying back to Cape Breton when something happened at the airport.

“I had a big reaction to an event that occurred … and at the end of the event, I kind of … Daniel. I had this … Daniel’s voice said, ‘There’s your show.’ And I was like, oh, OK.”

MacIvor says that moment felt like permission.

“So it’s a bit of a ghost story, I guess.”

Your Show Here is part therapy, part transition, and would be entirely insightful for theatre professionals early in their career. A performer letting go of the structure he built with a collaborator, while handing the tools to someone else – maybe even the audience.

“If you’ve ever lost somebody, you’ll understand what’s going on.”

This is the premiere production, created with One Yellow Rabbit as part of the High Performance Rodeo. MacIvor says Brooks would have approved.

Tickets can be found online here.