Toronto, ON (April 18, 2019): Expect Theatre’s PlayME - the podcast that transforms Canadian plays into audio dramas - and Canada’s #1 podcaster, CBC Podcasts, announced that Huff, from Dora Award-winning playwright and performer Cliff Cardinal, is available now as an audio drama in three bingeable chapters. An additional episode featuring an interview with the playwright will be available on April 23. PlayME is available for free on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, Spotify, and online at cbc.ca/playmeCBC and PlayMEpodcast.com.

Huff is the gut-wrenching and darkly humorous solo show from the internationally acclaimed playwright. Cardinal’s riveting work tells the story of Wind, an Indigenous young man and his two brothers, who are caught in a torrent of solvent abuse and suicide.

Huff explores what the playwright refers to as “Canada’s most taboo subculture, Indigenous kids who abuse solvents and are at high risk for suicide.” He has toured the play across Canada, as well as to Australia, England and Scotland. Huff was developed in part through The Collaborations, an initiative of Canada’s National Arts Centre English Theatre, and with the support of VideoCabaret, and premiered by Native Earth Performing Arts in 2015. It was directed and dramaturged by Karin Randoja and has garnered Dora Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Performance, and won the prestigious Edinburgh Festival’s Lustrum Award in 2018.

Son of iconic Canadian actress Tantoo Cardinal and a graduate of Canada’s National Theatre School, Cardinal’s latest play, Too Good To Be True, will open VideoCabaret’s 2019 season at its new space in Toronto, running April 24 - May 19. A workshop version of the script was presented at Summerworks ’13 where NOW Magazine said, “This captivating tale of an off-grid mother and her desperate children solidifies Cardinal as one of the most talented and intriguing writers in the country.”

Huff is the fourth of five audio dramas to be released as part of PlayME’s new season, in partnership with CBC Podcasts. Each play is recorded in three episodes, followed by an episode that features an interview with the respective playwright. The season began with Prairie Nurse by Marie Beath Baidian followed by Hannah Moscovitch’s What A Young Wife Ought To Know, and Anita Majumdar’s The Fish Eyes Trilogy. The remaining play, rounding out PlayME’s diverse array of Canadian stories, is Between Breaths by Governor General’s Award-winner and Newfoundland-based playwright Robert Chafe. The play follows the final moments of the “Whaleman” of Newfoundland as he reflects on a life dedicated to rescuing trapped whales, and will be available June 18.

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PlayME:

Since its inception in 2016, PlayME has transformed a variety of independent Canadian theatre productions into free audio podcasts. With over one million downloads in over 90 countries to date, PlayME is in the vanguard of facilitating international access to Canadian theatre and building an audience and appetite for it from all over the world (eight out of ten listeners is from outside Canada). PlayME is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

For “Drama on Demand,” tune in to PlayME at http://www.playmepodcast.com where the catalogue of podcasts can be heard.

Expect Theatre is an award-winning, Toronto-based company dedicated to producing cutting-edge, original, multi-disciplinary productions that explore modern urban life. Formed in 1998 by co-Artistic Directors Laura Mullin and Chris Tolley, Expect has a long track record of creating integrated theatre works, radio plays for CBC, viral videos and site-specific performance art installations. Works include Romeo/Juliet Remixed, Static, Awake, CBC Radio’s Tunnel Runners, AWAKE the film and the annual urbanNOISE festival. Mullin and Tolley launched PlayME - an online portal presenting audio podcasts of Canadian plays and related content - in 2016. http://www.expect.org , http://www.playmepodcast.com

From Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC Podcasts is a richly diverse collection of award-winning podcasts that engage, enlighten and entertain. CBC is the #1 podcaster in Canada, reaching more Canadians than any other podcast publisher. With more than 20 series in genres such as investigative reporting and true crime, comedy, human interest and audio fiction, CBC podcasts are downloaded more than 21 million times* per month.

*Source: Sumo Logic (Sept 2018 to March 2019).

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Media Refer:

For Expect Theatre/PlayME: Dianne Weinrib – DW Communications   dw@dwcommunications.net  416-703-5479

For CBC Podcasts: Tanya Koivusalo – CBC Publicist  tanya.koivusalo@cbc.ca    416.205.8638