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Based on a novel-length poem by Canadian poet and playwright Mansel Robinson, Spitting Slag is a fiercely poetic portrait of a hard rock miner named Floyd Delormier, who has survived a catastrophic mine cave in that trapped him underground for eight days, forever changing the arc of his life. Floyd is a garrulous and cantankerous soul, working his way back from the darkness toward the light.
Spitting Slag takes the audience into the darkness a mile underground and then brings them back to the surface, lungs burning, into the bright light of redemption.
Shot through with humour and the gritty language of a Sudbury bar on a Saturday night, Spitting Slag shines a light into the heart and spirit of the working men and women who inhabit the main streets of towns and villages across Canada.
GLEN CAIRNS (Performer & Producer) MANSEL ROBINSON (Writer)
Glen Cairns is a Canadian writer, performer and director, who has spent many years working in theatres across Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Latin America, before returning home to Kamloops in 2015. Glen has a long history of creating theatre with and for marginalized communities. He has worked as an addictions counsellor and enjoyed a long and creative professional association with the late Paul Crepeau at the fabled Fend Players’ Station Street Arts Centre in Vancouver, a theatre company created and operated by former inmates of the federal prison system, where he served as the Artistic Director of Fend’s theatre program for street-involved and at-risk youth. He is a former Artistic Director of 25th Street Theatre and The Saskatoon International Fringe Festival. His production company, Acme World Headquarters, is based in Kamloops.
Mansel Robinson is a Canadian poet and playwright, who lives in the village of Chapleau in Northern Ontario. He is the author of numerous plays and books of poetry. Noted for his fierce commitment to social justice, his plays, including The Heart as It Lived, Downsizing Democracy, Colonial Tongues, and Collateral Damage have been produced across Canada. Spitting Slag and its companion piece, Ghost Trains, is published by Thistledown Press under the the title Rock ‘n Rail. Nominated for the Canada Council Siminovitch Prize in Playwrighting, Mansel is widely regarded as one of Canada’s leading playwrights.