Kitchener + Waterloo
artistic endorsements*
"Kitchener + Waterloo is a thoughtful, funny and tender contemplation of home, belonging and place. Haley’s got a real skill at establishing intimacy with an audience - albeit an intimacy that's a little too sly to take entirely on trust. She uses it to unfold a highly involving suite of stories about her hometown, which together interrogate the push and pull that attracts us to and repels us from the places we grew up.”
— Brian Logan, Artistic Director, Camden People’s Theatre
“Kitchener + Waterloo is a piece that showcases Haley’s incredible talent as a performer and writer. She curls her hair, she chats with the audience - one moment she goes dark and the next moment she’s handing out pretzels. KW has been unbound from Ontario and seems poised to deliver its message of nostalgia/sadness/repression/mundanity/danger/pretzels throughout the world.”
— Deborah Pearson, Co-Artistic Director, Forest Fringe
“Haley McGee has such a unique voice as a writer and performer that it’s difficult not to fall in love with her work. Kitchener + Waterloo transports you to the twin cities of her childhood in Canada in such an inclusive way it rang bells of my own little valley in South Wales.”
— Richard Corgan, Artistic Director, Table 21 Productions
*this show hasn't been reviewed yet
show description
“Two mid-sized cities collide on a single street. Waterloo is who you want to be, and Kitchener is who you fear you really are.”
Kitchener + Waterloo is a never-the-same-twice solo performance that confronts the place Haley’s from, a place she’s always been embarrassed by but now wishes she wasn’t.
Through (ongoing) interviews, archival research and her own origin stories, Haley has collected too many tales from her hometown. Each story ends at a fork in the road. The audience decides where we go.
An unlikely suite of stories are woven together in this spontaneous, funny, shocking, tender take-down-send-up meditation on home, hometowns, homecomings and who gets to live where.
Kitchener+Waterloo is a rallying cry for all those who secretly battle with the place they are from, who recoil at the thought of having to go back, who want reconcile with their roots... who had to leave in order to feel at home.
“This play, ripe with humour & poignancy, drives to the heart of what we are all feeling-What is the meaning of home and where are we all going?”
- Coleen Shirin-MacPherson,
Playwright & Director
artistic team
Haley McGee - writer/performer
Micheal Müller - dramaturg
Holly Beasley Garrigan - dramaturg, movement director
Additional outside eye work by Hepzibah Roe, Brittney Francis, Ted Witzel, Daniel Goodbaum & Rory McGee
This show is a co-production between Theaterdiscounter & Never Mind the Noise
performance history
Theaterdiscounter, Berlin, Germany, 2017
Camden People’s Theatre, London, England, 2017
development history
Kitchener + Waterloo was created in residence at Theaterdiscounter, Berlin. K+W premiered in London in 2017, at Camden People's Theatre, co-produced with Theaterdiscounter, Berlin.
Another phase of development will take place in 2018, gathering more stories to be folded into the show's repertoire, and preparing for touring in 2019.
audience feedback
“One of the best things I’ve seen in a dog’s age… a damn fine show.” - Alan Williams
“Haley McGee is a natural; charismatic, funny, clever, spellbinding.” - Sam Levine
“KITCHENER + WATERLOO is a show about a place I’ve never been to but a state of mind I know intimately well… It is funny, thoughtful, and full of camaraderie.” - Morgan McBride