In-Between

Description

Adopted as a baby by white parents who found her in an orphanage in Vietnam, Lily has always considered herself Canadian. When Karim - a guy she's liked for a long time - finally starts to show interest in her, Lily's best friend Brit starts to hang out with some grade-twelves with radical opinions about immigrants. After a conflict between Brit and Karim breaks out when other students share racist, anti-immigrant memes, a misunderstanding leads to a lockdown in the school. Lily finds herself right in the middle, forced to make hard choices about who she really is, and which friend she's going to believe. Set in a school facing the real-life challenges of immigration, income inequality, and fears of violence in our schools, The In-Between is a realistic, relatable exploration of the complex social circumstances students must navigate in contemporary schools. Like Youssef's international hit Jabber, seen by tens of thousands of young people across North America and Europe, The In-Between brings humour, sensitivity, and a deftly authentic ear to the adult-sized questions young people confront as they enter their later teens.

Marcus Youssef is one of Canada's best-known contemporary playwrights. His plays have been produced in dozens of theatres in fifteen countries across North America, Europe, and Asia, from Seattle to New York to Reykjavik, London, Hong Kong, and Berlin. He is the recipient of Canada's largest cultural prize, the Siminovitch Prize for Theatre, as well as the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award, the Chalmers Canadian Play Award, the Seattle Times Footlight Award, the Vancouver Critics' Innovation Award (three times), and the Canada Council Staunch Lynton Award for Artistic Achievement. Over the years Marcus has also written for a half-dozen shows on CBC Radio and Television and a wide variety of Canadian print and web-based publications, with bylines in the Georgia Straight, Vancouver Magazine, This Magazine, Rice Paper, the Tyee, Vanopolis, and Canadian Theatre Review, among others. Marcus is artistic director of Vancouver's Neworld Theatre and co-founder of the East Vancouver-based, artist-run production studio PL1422. He was the inaugural chair of the City of Vancouver's Arts and Culture Policy Council, a Canadian Fellow to the International Society for Performing Arts, and co-chair of the Vancouver political party The Coalition of Progressive Electors. He is currently an editorial advisor to Canadian Theatre Review and a consulting advisor for the National Arts Centre English Theatre. He teaches regularly at the National Theatre School of Canada, Studio 58 Langara College, and the University of British Columbia. See: marcusyoussef.com / neworldtheatre.com / @marcusyoussef.