Pest Me Pet Me

Lock your trash bins and oil your drain pipes. Raccoon is QUEEN in the city. Pest Me Pet Me follows two raccoons who face off with two female roommates undergoing a suspicious renoviction from their downtown apartment. United by ongoing compost bin wars and raccoon Instagram funerals, the two species find themselves with more in common than previously thought. Pest Me Pet Me is a horror-comedy that explores themes of displacement, female rage, and housing and work precarity in urban cities through a unique raccoon-human relationship. Through a mixture of mask, clown, and magic realism, the show reflects on what ‘home’ means in cities that increasingly create immense challenges to sustainable and long term residence and explores the pressures a capitalist system puts on femme bodies and relationships.

Morgan Brie Johnson is a theatre creator, playwright, clown, and co-artistic leader of Animacy Theatre Collective. Morgan has been performing in mask, clown and physical theatre for many years; she has studied at the Clown Farm and holds a BFA from the University of Windsor.

Alexandra Simpson is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist and actor with a background in physical theatre, directing, and playwriting. She is co-artistic leader of Animacy Theatre Collective (animacytheatrecollective.com) and is a mask builder who works with a variety of materials and methods.

Recognition

Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council

Special thanks to Brian Quirt for dramaturgical support and Heather Marie Annis for directing our 2020 workshop of this show.

www.animacytheatrecollective.com/