Finalist for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play
A woman, with the help of a man, nervously sets out to tell us all a joke: A man walks into a bar and meets a waitress. As they begin to perform the joke for the audience, lines between the performers and characters blur and a tense and funny standoff about gender and power emerges. Is the customer justified in thinking something will happen? Is the waitress justified to lie? Why are some things funny to her and insulting to him? Ownership of the story becomes a competition as the man and woman unpack every word and movement, catching each other out on their assumptions and contradictions as they inch towards the dark punchline.
News & Reviews
“Named as an OUTSTANDING NEW PLAY, OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION, OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE, OUTSTANDING DIRECTION” —Now Magazine
“Blair artfully tantalizes us with what could be a cute romantic scenario, only to starkly expose the misunderstanding — to say nothing of the vicious misogyny — that still blights male-female relationships in the 21st century.” — Torontoist
“There is a punchline to A Man Walks Into a Bar. But it’s more like a gut-punch: it hits low, it hits hard, and it hits close to home. And everybody needs to see it.” — Mooney on Theatre
About the Author
Rachel Blair is a Dora-nominated playwright and performer. Her play A Man Walks Into a Bar was a runaway hit at the Toronto Fringe Festival, remounted to sell-out runs at the Next Stage Theatre Festival and Ottawa’s Undercurrents Festival. Recognized by the Globe and Mail as a “Favourite Cultural Moment of 2015,” A Man Walks Into a Bar was nominated for Outstanding New Play at the 2016 Dora Awards. Her first play, Wake, won the Toronto Fringe’s New Play Contest. She has been shortlisted for the Tarragon Theatre RBC Emerging Playwright’s Competition and has developed work through Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre, and the Banff Centre’s Playwright’s Lab. Rachel is a graduate of York University’s Theatre Program and The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. She lives in Toronto.
