Community events surrounding Miriam's World by Naomi Jaye
Miriam’s World by Naomi Jaye (a Tremendous Productions immersive experience presented by Theatre Passe Muraille) is a wry look into the life of librarian Miriam Gordon and a group of library patrons who frequent the branch where she works — and exposes both the dark and humorous urban life and issues.
Inspired by these themes, the Miriam’s World team, Tremendous Productions, and Theatre Passe Muraille has curated a series of community engagement events that asks the question, “Who does the library belong to?” and “What transforms a place into ‘public space’?”
Miriam’s World — ‘Library as Refuge’ Poetry and Redaction Artist Commissions
December 10 and 14 to 18, 2022 | TPM Backspace
Five to seven community artists will create works in response to questions around either “homelessness and public spaces” or “documenting the absent.” How do we capture the absence of the tent city community? Who do our public libraries belong to?
These works will be on display during the run of Miriam’s World at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace on December 10 & from December 14 to 18.
TPM Book Club — The Incident Report by Martha Baillie
December 7, 2022 | 7:30pm – 8:30pm | Online (Zoom)
Theatre Passe Muraille’s community Book Club will be reading The Incident Report by Martha Baillie, the book that inspired Miriam’s World. Martha will be in attendance for the latter half of the discussion. Join us for this very special edition of the book club!
the prelude: Translations and Adaptation with Martha Baillie and Naomi Jaye
December 11, 2022 | 4pm – 5pm | Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, 16 Ryerson Avenue
Our Prelude event for Miriam’s World will be a conversation between Martha Baillie and Naomi Jaye on the translation from book to installation and the journey of creating Miriam’s World. This discussion will be moderated by artist Julia Hune-Brown and will include a reading from The Incident Report by Martha Baillie.
There will be snacks and drinks at this event. ASL- Interpretation will also be available.
The Living Lending Library
December 14 to 18, 2022 | 12:30pm – 8:30pm | Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Avenue
The TPM Backspace will become a “Living Lending Library” complete with a reading room to create a vibrant and interactive space where people can take books, leave books, read, and talk.
Made up of de-commissioned library books and donated books, we invite our community to create our own library in the Backspace theatre. How do we build our own public spaces, foster connections, and exchange knowledge?
The Living Lending Library will be open to the public on the following dates and times:
Dec 14 to 16 – 12:30pm to 8:30pm
Dec 17 – 12:30pm to 3:30pm and 6pm to 8:30pm
Dec 18 – 12:30pm to 4:00pm
There will be snacks and drinks provided throughout this event.
Community Post-Mortem — A Look Back at the Alexandra Park Tent Community
December 17, 2022 | 4pm | Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Avenue
A community look back at the Alexandra Park Tent Community with author Martha Baillie, local community worker Charlene Lee, and special guests. We’ll be discussing community organizing, mutual aid, and how certain local organizations supported their underhoused neighbours during the pandemic. This event will be moderated by artist Victoria Mata.
There will be snacks and drinks at this event. ASL- Interpretation will also be available.
Lost & Found Poetry: Writing Workshop with Fan Wu
December 18, 2022 | 3:30pm | Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Avenue
A poetry and movement workshop run by poet and performance artist Fan Wu, together we will write and use our own writings as the basis for the creation of a movement-based score. This workshop thinks of writing as a game of lost and found — inspired by Miriam’s World and texts that we bring into the space, participants will write, with gentle guidance, poems and monologues out of scraps of found material.
Fan Wu did it in the antechamber with a fountain pen. He is a poet and facilitator who has hosted workshops with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Dancing with Parkinson’s, and the Toronto International Film Festival. For him, pedagogy is the passion of experimentation. His current PhD work examines the strange affinities between Georges Bataille and Zhuangzi, two of the most powerful thinkers of non-productivity.
There will be snacks and drinks at this event.
Celeste Cole is an arts programmer and concept artist living in Toronto, Canada. She is passionate about the necessity to create.
She facilitates arts exploration and non-clinical mental health workshops. Embedding unconventional ways of learning and making through various mediums.
Her roots are in portrait photography and project management.
She is a family member at Recess, an arts collective that aims to instil creative confidence. There focuses on campaigns, programming and creative direction.
Currently she manages paid opportunities for youth artists at JAYU Canada. She managed JAYU’s youth arts programming from 2018 to 2021.
Desiree Mckenzie is an award-winning poet, arts educator, national poetry slam champion, voice actor, and photographer from Toronto. Her poetry and voice have been featured in works for CBC’s Poetic License series, When Sisters Speak, Clearco Financial’s International Women’s Day Campaign, Kids Help Phone, and Home Depot. She facilitates a range of community poetry programming for organizations like JAYU, VIBE Arts, Unity Charity, Poetry in Voice, and Shakespeare in Action. In March 2021, she released her debut spoken word EP, Wet Hair, now available on streaming platforms. In December 2022, she will be opening for Rupi Kaur on her world tour stop at Massey Hall.
Radha Pithadia is diasporic South Asian Multidisciplinary Artist, Storyteller, Wellness Practitioner and Community Space Holder. She creates and nurtures people & projects with curiosity rooted in love, vulnerability & compassion. With a background in Ayurveda, Human Anatomy, and Arts, she approaches collective presence with a holistic lense. How can we mindfully be with one another, with the land? How it is often one and the same. How do we create together from a place of love? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do we… be?
She finds joys in prolonged eye contact, touching moss, having her feet in bodies of water, and practicing play.
Pip Bradford is an independent producer, production manager, and stage manager who works with many companies in Toronto, including Anandam DanceTheatre, The Toronto Comic Arts Festival, 7a*11d Performance Art Festival, SummerWorks, Luminato, Red Sky Performance, Nightwood Theatre, and Theatre Passe Muraille. You’ve probably seen something she’s done, but you almost certainly didn’t see her do it. Pip also creates installation art with Rebecca Vandevelde as Art is Hard Productions, most recently reprising their installation BLANKET FORT for The Bentway for Family Day 2020. In her spare time, Pip works as a member of the Means of Production, a collective of freelance production staff seeking to promote values-based production work while advocating for equitable working conditions and providing resources to the independent production community.
Fan Wu did it in the antechamber with a fountain pen. He is a poet and facilitator who has hosted workshops with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Dancing with Parkinson’s, and the Toronto International Film Festival. For him, pedagogy is the passion of experimentation. His current PhD work examines the strange affinities between Georges Bataille and Zhuangzi, two of the most powerful thinkers of non-productivity.
About Miriam's World
December 9 to 18, 2022 | Theatre Passe Muraille is transformed into a public library in this immersive multi-media experience. Miriam’s World, based on Martha Baillie’s Giller long-listed novel, The Incident Report, is wry look into the life of librarian Miriam Gordon and a group of library patrons who frequent the branch where she works, and exposes both the dark and humorous urban life and issues.
Tickets are now on sale! Our tickets for the 22.23 season offer pay-what-you-can-afford price points: $10 / $30 / $60.
See our Box Office page for full schedule.
ASL Interpreted on Dec 11 & 17 at 2pm and 3pm. Please indicated when booking if you will be using the ASL Interpretation.
Miriam’s World is a Relaxed Run.
The experience is wheelchair friendly.
Description of underhoused experiences, mental illness, implied sexual content, self-harm, suicidal imagery.
If you would like information on the topics or themes in our productions, or to determine the suggested age for attending a performance, please reach out to our Box Office staff at 416.504.7529 or by email at info@passemuraille.on.ca.
To schedule an interview with the artist, or staff members at Theatre Passe Muraille regarding this production, please email Red eye media at Suzanne@redeyemedia.ca. We will try out best to accommodate your media requests, however they are not guaranteed.
Theatre Passe Muraille means Theatre Beyond Walls.
We are a theatre company located in Toronto, known for our charming historic building (former Bakery & Stables turned into 2 theatre spaces). Our company is focused on developing and producing new alternative plays that strive to articulate a distinct Canadian voice that reflects the complexity of our intercultural society.
Film artist Naomi Jaye has a flair for cinematic scale, unconventional storytelling and striking visual execution. Her debut feature film THE PIN opened in theatres across North America to rave reviews, The New York Times declared, “It is almost bewildering to think what this first-time feature director could build with a larger budget.”
It was while completing her MFA at York University that Naomi expanded her screen-based practice to include video installation. Her installation MRI is an immersive exploration of the effects of medical imaging on the body and was recently mounted at the Meridian Arts Centre. NOW Magazine called it “hypnotic, deeply personal and a must see”. She is currently working on POOL, funded through Toronto Arts Council. It is a multi-screen installation set in a women’s change room that explores the female body and how it experiences grief. Her new installation practice is strongly influenced by her roots in theatre design.
Alumnae of the prestigious TIFF Studio, Torino Film Lab, Berlin Talents and TIFF Talent Lab, Naomi’s second feature film THE INCIDENT REPORT is adapted from Martha Baillie’s Giller long-listed novel of the same name. Financed by Telefilm Canada, it is set to be released in 2023.
Naomi continues to explore installation and expansive cinema at Queens University where she is completing a PhD. Naomi is a lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University.