Reaching for Starlight
- Publisher
- Playwrights Canada Press
- Initial publish date
- Jan 2023
- Category
- Women Authors, Canadian
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780369103888
- Publish Date
- Jan 2023
- List Price
- $18.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780369103895
- Publish Date
- Jan 2023
- List Price
- $13.99
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 8 to 14
- Grade: 3 to 9
Description
Reenie wants to dance, following in her mother’s footsteps. Just like the rest of her ensemble, she believes she has what it takes to earn the coveted solo at the year-end recital. But when she notices that their strict maestra is not holding everyone to the same “traditional” standard—particularly Maia, the other Black girl in the class—Reenie is determined to stop her friend from being counted out of the competition. Frustrated with not being understood by her mother and filled with a new-found passion to fight a broken system, Reenie hatches a plan with her classmates but doesn’t realize where her quick journey towards justice missed the mark with her friend.
Reaching for Starlight is a compassionate story about the way we are told to move through a world not made for us, whether together or alone.
About the authors
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, a.k.a. Belladonna the Blest, is an emcee, playwright, agitator, and practitioner of humanitarian arts. Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Bilguisa Speaks Up, Diggers, Conjugal, Hunt/Peck, and The First Stone. She is a contributor to The Only Good Indian (Jiv Parasram, Tom Arthur Davis/Pandemic Theatre), Forbidden (Afarin Mansouri/Tapestry Opera), and Oubliette (Ivan Barbotin/Tapestry Opera). Other theatre works include Reaching for Starlight, They Say He Fell, and The Final Inquiry. She is co-editor with Yvette Nolan of Refractions: Solo (2014) and Refractions: Scenes (2020) and editor of Indian Act: Residential School Plays (2018), all published with Playwrights Canada Press.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard's profile page
Mike Payette is a director, educator, and actor who has appeared at some of Canada’s finest theatres. He has worked with incredible companies across the country including the Citadel, Vertigo, Banff Centre, Geordie, Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, Repercussion Theatre, Segal Centre, Centaur, the Grand, Factory Theatre, Neptune, and the National Arts Centre, among others. Directing credits include Come Home: The Legend of Daddy Hall, cockroach (曱甴), Paint Me This House of Love (Tarragon), Blithe Spirit (Shaw Festival), Choir Boy (Canadian Stage/Arts Club Theatre), Harlem Duet (Black Theatre Workshop), Another Home Invasion (Tableau D’Hôte Theatre), Hosanna and Choir Boy (Centaur), Around the World in 80 Days, Virginia Wolf, The Paperbag Princess, and Reaching for Starlight (Geordie), Venus, Burning Vision, and Indecent (National Theatre School), Sensitivity (Obsidian Theatre/CBC Gem), the Quebec premiere of Héritage—A Raisin in the Sun (Théâtre Duceppe), along with the national tours of The Tashme Project (Tashme Prod/Centaur/Factory/Firehall), and Lorena Gale’s Angélique (BTW/Tableau D’Hôte/NAC/Factory/Obsidian). Mike is a two-time Montreal English Theatre Award (META) recipient and was the co-founding artistic director of Tableau D’Hôte Theatre and past assistant artistic director for Black Theatre Workshop. He was also artistic and executive director of Geordie Productions in Montreal before becoming artistic director of Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, where he is currently based.
Excerpt: Reaching for Starlight (by (author) Donna-Michelle St. Bernard; foreword by Mike Payette)
(LIL and REENIE at home.
REENIE sits in lotus position, trying to cross every single part of her for good luck: fingers, toes, arms, legs, eyes. Shestrains audibly. LIL enters.)
LIL What are you doing?
REENIE Hope, hope, hoping Maestra gives me the lead in the Firebird.
LIL I was hoping you'd do the dishes last night. See where hope got me?
REENIE Um, hope is only one of my many strategies.
LIL Oh yeah? What else you got?
REENIE As if you don’t see me working on my arabesque while I brush my teeth.
LIL I see you.
REENIE Well then?
LIL Imagine how good you’d be if you moved practise up from a side dish to the main course. You too good to try your best? What are you doing to move yourself out of the trenches and into the spotlight?
REENIE I dunno. It’s dance, not math. Maestra already said that if I keep acting up I‘m out of the running for lead. And I don't know if my sneezing fit counts against me - which I was NOT faking to get a laugh.
LIL Your sneeze is pretty hilarious.
REENIE I can't control what other people laugh at! Anyway, if that's acting up, then I might not get it, but I don't know if it is.
LIL Have you thought of asking?
REENIE Right, Mom. I'll just interrupt to ask if I'm on notice for interrupting.
LIL Okay, obviously you can’t speak in class. But you know, there's always at least ...
REENIE ...at least three possible solutions to every problem.
LIL And you always have / choices.
REENIE You always have choices. Yeah. Such as?
LIL You could wait for the right moment to talk to her.
REENIE And die waiting? Pass.
LIL Or you could create the right moment.
REENIE What am I, a timelord?
LIL Or you could skip the drama and focus on your dancing.
(REENIE gives LIL the saltiest side-eye)
LIL So what are you doing about it?
REENIE Hello?! I'm hoping my butt off! I know I can play this part.
LIL Well there's your problem. You're still trying to play the Firebird. What you need to do is become the firebird.
REENIE Yeah, okay. I'll do that.
LIL No, you need to make Maestra see that you already are the firebird.
REENIE Cool. So I'm thinking I'll spontaneously combust next week. Is that what you had in mind?
LIL Aha. It becomes apparent that Maestra is not the problem here. How do you expect to convince her when you’re not convinced?
REENIE Mo-om.
LIL Come on. Tell me one way you were amazing today.
REENIE I’m not in the mood.
LIL Then you’d better tell me two.
REENIE Fine. Today I ... parted my hair with perfect symmetry, all by myself. And I apologized to Karyn, even though she didn’t ask me to, and even though we were both equally wrong, although if you think about it, she was a little more wrong than me.
LIL Amazing! Now, let’s see that ronde de jambe. Who’s the righteous protector of the earth?
(REENIE goes through part of the routine, strengthening as she gains confidence)
REENIE ...Me?
LIL Sho’ nuff! Who's gonna light it up at that recital?
REENIE Me, I guess.
(REENIE’s into a series of pirouettes now)
LIL Who's the firebird?
REENIE I am.
LIL Who's the firebird?
REENIE I am.
LIL Who's the firebird?!
REENIE I am!
LIL Yeah, you are. Go on, girl. Get it.
Editorial Reviews
“Reaching for Starlight is a powerful reminder of the ways in which young people are capable of so much revolutionary work; how they are motivated to face adversity, stand together, and advocate for genuine, lasting change.”
westmountmag.ca
