About the Play:

Finalist for the 2008 Governor General's Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

10 Days on Earth is a full-length drama by internationally acclaimed adult puppeteer Ronnie Burkett. A mentally challenged adult lives with his mother who has died in her bed. For the next 10 days, he innocently carries on in the simple world he knows. 10 Days on Earth is a tender, funny and unapologetic story that celebrates a mother's love for her son in all its honesty and fierce, unwavering will.

10 Days on Earth asks: If you were alone but didn't know it, would you feel lonely? Darrel is a simply simple middle-aged man who lives with his mother. When she dies in her sleep, Darrel does not realize she is gone, and so, for ten days, he lives alone. Tandem to Darrel's day to day routine are the adventures of his favourite children's book characters, Honeydog and Little Burp. Their search for a home leads the dog and duck duo to an understanding of family, while Darrel's ease in the world illustrates just how his mother has paved the path for him to be without her. Episodes from the past, like faded colour snapshots from a family album, illustrate this mother's love for her son in all its honesty and fierce, unwavering will.

Cast: 1 performer

10 Days on Earth premiered in 2006 at CanStage in Toronto and then toured nationally and internationally.

What people say:

"Populated by a typically broad range of searchers, survivors and misfits, 10 Days on Earth is one of his most finely constructed scripts." — The Times (London, UK)

"Enormously imaginative, improbably moving and wonderfully life-affirming, 10 Days on Earth shows the MEN Theatre Award-winning Burkett is still pulling all the right strings in splendid style." — Manchester Evening News (Manchester, UK)

"Ronnie Burkett's 10 Days on Earth is about as close to a masterpiece as you can get." — Stage Noise (Sydney, Australia)

"It takes your breath away. Burkett is an artistic treasure." — CBC Radio (Toronto)

About the Author:

Ronnie Burkett is Canada's foremost artist in puppet theatre. He has received numerous awards in the Canadian theatre as a playwright, actor and designer for his work with Theatre of Marionettes, including the 2009 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, and international recognition including a Village Voice OBIE Award in New York for Off-Broadway Theatre, and four Citations of Excellence in the Art of Puppetry from the American Center of the Union Internationale de la Marionnette.