Directorial Work
Production
Manifausto (2025)
Written by Baird Duncan
Directed by Ian McCormack Manifausto is an open text play written by queer and trans Montreal-based artist Baird Duncan, inspired by Yvonne Rainer’s No Manifesto (1965) and Charles Gounod’s Faust (1869).
It is a visual collage of bodies (and experimenting) on stage. As an open text play very much open to interpretation, the text operates not as fixed dialogue but more like a score, heavily informing movement-based exploration and improvisation to create an anthology of negotiation, live music and projection, manifestos, the human body, and confession/rejection. Manifausto Is both a plea and a refusal; it is a container for a body, as it investigates what it means to be human. It is a performance that makes “no” into a form, a score, and a way of survival despite all odds. It is a human manifesto.
(Keywords: Movement, Contact Improv, Somatic Practice, Live Projection, Open-text Play, Shadow Puppetry, Intimate, Grotesque,).
Production
Hair (2023)
Book and Lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado
Original Music by Galt McDermott
Directed by Abi Sanie
Assistant Directed by Ian McCormack
Choreography by Oceanie Renaud
Vocal Direction by Maddison Schmitt
Presented By AUTS Montreal
It is an LSD-fuelled cacophony of abstract interaction. It is free jazz for the mind. It is Jackson Pollock for the eyes. It is Hair, a story that is characteristically a product of its time. Hair is a story about struggle, sex, and social justice. It is a rejection of the insidiousness of the American military-industrial complex, and its ever-clenching grip on the commodification of its citizens in its best interest. Yet is a production — as the program notes of the original text note — without specific scenes; this is no accident, for its nearly sixty-year-old fluid abstraction is applicable across the West, through the Global South — and into the present day. The alignment of the six planets closest to the sun will make for the dawn of the Age of Aquarius— but with such words of war and wars of words that fuel our society, the achievement seems further out of grasp by each passing day.
Keywords: Musical, Ensemble, Movement Direction, Puppetry, Anti-war, Psychedelic.
Production
To Torture A Prince (2022)
Written and Directed by Ian McCormack.
To Torture A Prince is an abstract, satirical drama based on the life, writings, and misfortunes of the Italian diplomat, writer, and philosopher, Niccolò Machiavelli. This piece looks at his beliefs revolving around power and diplomacy after his wrongful torture and imprisonment in 1512. It is an analysis of a man’s inner torment and his advice to world leaders of the past, present, and future. On the surface, it may seem that his influence is irrelevant; however, his significance lives on through notable politicians that changed the course of history through his wrongful means. To Torture A Prince explores the true meaning of leadership and the test of time for a Renaissance inquisitor. Should we lead with fear or rather love? Does anyone really know the answer?
To Torture A Prince premiered at the ON THE EDGE Fringe in August 2022, winning the festival’s Jurors Choice Award. The show was produced by North Bay’s Good Pine Productions
(Keywords: Adaptation, The Prince, Political Satire, Farce, Fringe).
