About the Play:

Finalist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

Selfie is a full-length drama by Christine Quintana. The first party of the school year comes packed with expectations. It's a time to renew old friendships and perhaps find new love. But what happens when an incident shatters the connections between three friends? Teenage relationships are complicated enough – especially when you add the reckless power of social media. Incisive and witty, Selfie is a powerful reflection on sexual consent, failed communication and self-promotion in this era of Instagram.

Selfie explores a difficult situation between three high school friends around a sexual encounter that gets even more complicated when one of them posts about it on Instagram. A new year of high school is full of excitement and potential – but three teens didn't expect it to bring such a dark change to their lives. After spending a summer reinventing herself in Paris, Emma is ready for her new life to start, while her best friend Lily is eager for them to reconnect. Lily throws a last-minute party fuelled by alcohol and Instagram, which leads to a long-awaited encounter between Emma and Lily's older brother Chris. But the next day Emma feels that something went terribly wrong. When a doctor's appointment and a visit from police confirm that there was a sexual assault at the party, and the whole school turns against Emma, the three friends grapple with what actually happened between Emma and Chris. Selfie is a smart and intense play about the complexities of relationships and community that opens up a much-needed conversation about the nature of sexual consent and power dynamics.

Selfie was originally developed in French for Vancouver's Théâtre La Seizième, which premiered it in 2015. The original theatrical production won the Sydney Risk Prize for Outstanding Script by an Emerging Playwright. The English version of Selfie premiered in April 2018 at Toronto's Young People's Theatre and was then performed at Rumble Theatre's Tremors Festival at the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver. The play won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (TYA), the Tom Hendry Award for Theatre for Young Audiences, and was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award in 2021.

What people say:

"Quintana's writing is natural, bitingly funny, and heartfelt. All three characters are wholly developed and vividly real ... by deconstructing rape culture and exploring consent in smart, engaging, entertaining, and emotionally fulfilling ways ... this is required theatre for everyone." — Georgia Straight

"Quintana's temerity for making very polemical issues appear equivocal and challenging is a sincere compliment to her teenage viewers." — The Globe and Mail

Christine Quintana is a Canadian playwright, actor, and theatre director, whose play Selfie was a nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2021 Governor General's Awards. Born in Los Angeles to a Mexican American father and a Dutch British Canadian mother, she is a graduate of UBC's BFA Acting program and a proud member of the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition.