Frankenkenstein
Artist: ellis cheadle
In Development Presentation
Russian Hall (600 Campbell Ave, Vancouver)
Thursday, February 5 @ 7pm
Duration: 35 minutes
Photo: Keely O’Brien
Credit: Luciana F. D’anunciação
Image description: A woman in a white t-shirt and brown hair that is tied back is smiling menacingly at the camera in a darkened space. She is wearing big green monster-hand gloves that are held up in front of her. There is a person sitting behind her, looking off to the side and shadows on the back wall.
Frankenkenstein is a new, devised theatre piece by artist ellis cheadle, that draws on fragments of Mary Shelley’s iconic Gothic tale to explore monstrosity, ambiguity, and the relentless ways the past intrudes upon the present. After early development at What Lab’s Exquisite Pressure and HERE FOR NOW’s Boombox, Frankenkenstein is now being developed through Theatre Replacement’s COLLIDER Artist Residency and will be shared in-progress at HOLD ON LET GO in 2026.
Frankenkenstein is an indulgent autopsy of the Gothic genre, as stitched back together (again and again) by a hack surgeon. It’s a camp-horror theatrical collage set during a perpetually dark and stormy night. The performance acts as an exhibition of sorts - revealing the results of experiments performed on collective rememberings of Shelley’s Frankenstein. Structurally, the show takes inspiration from the musical canon - a form built on staggered, layered melodic loops. In Frankenkenstein, three performers weave together cheadle’s text and physical action, blurring beginnings and endings. The result is a stacking of ghastly motifs that constantly accumulate and unravel, forcing us to reckon with cryptic questions of action and consequence; monster-makers, and makers’-monsters.
Written and Directed by ellis cheadle
Performed by Ashley Aron, Keely O'Brien, and Marc Arboleda
Music by Elliot Vaughan
Dramaturgy by Aryo Khakpour
Frankenkenstein is developed through Theatre Replacement’s COLLIDER Artist Residency. Early development of the piece supported by What Lab and HERE FOR NOW.
ellis cheadle is a theatre artist based on the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations. She holds a diploma from Mount Royal University’s acting conservatory program, and a BFA in theatre from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts.
First and foremost, ellis is a collaborator, who thrives when working collectively. She is a writer, director, dramaturg, and performer with a practice focused on devised and experimental theatre. Her work regularly plays in the realms of the absurd and existential, the playful and poetic, and delights in collaging seemingly incongruous genres, themes, and materials.
Recently, ellis’ work has been presented at Festival TransAmériques (Montreal), The Vancouver Art Gallery, Centre A Gallery, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Boombox, Festival de Casteliers (Montreal), Schaubude Berlin, and the rEvolver Theatre Festival.
CONTACT
ellis cheadle
ellis.cheadle@gmail.com
@ellis_c_theatre