About the Play:

6 Essential Questions is a full-length drama adapted for the stage by Priscila Uppal from her critically acclaimed memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother. Imaginations run wild in this strangely beautiful and funny story loosely based on Priscila Uppal's experience reuniting with her own mother. Renata travels to Brazil to reunite with the mother who abandoned her when she was just five years old, but in Rio, she discovers more than she bargained for in her quest to uncover the truth of who abandoned whom.

6 Essential Questions challenges the belief that everyone loves their Mother, and Mothers love their children unconditionally. But is this always the case? The character of Renata grapples with these issues as she travels to Brazil to reunite after 20 years with the mother who abandoned her when she was just five years old. She is continually tossed about by her undead grandmother and a semi-invisible uncle as they choreograph the ultimate dance of runaway mother and estranged daughter, both of whom must confront their dreams before they can ever attempt to confront each other. From celebrated novelist and poet Priscila Uppal comes a startling playwriting debut; 6 Essential Questions is a poetic and powerful carnival of tragicomic theatre loosely based on her critically acclaimed memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother, a finalist for both the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction.

6 Essential Questions premiered in 2015 at Factory Theatre in Toronto.

Cast: 3 female, 1 male

What people say:

"[A] riotous Rio Carnival: it's raucous, in your face, often entertaining." — NOW Magazine

"A surreal, tango-drenched adventure through time and space ... incredibly funny. The dialogue dances with sharp wit that reads like snappy poetry. Funny, shocking, touching, and deeply humanizing, this play deals with a delicate and difficult notion – maternal rejection – with humor, brutal honesty and steely nerve ... while simultaneously taking the audience on a tour of the human heart, with all its frailties and all of its resilience." — Cadence Canada

"[A] riveting and poetic theatrical experience." — The Charlebois Post

About the Playwright:

Priscila Uppal (1974-2018) was a Canadian poet, novelist, fiction writer, and playwright. A Professor at Toronto's York University, she received the colourful moniker of "Canada's coolest poet" by Time Out London magazine when she was appointed poet-in-residence for Canadian Athletes Now at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She was the author of 10 books of poetry, two novels, a short story collection and has appeared in and edited many anthologies.