Tomboy (Chłopczyca)
Digital Program

About the Play

Queer vampires and Slavic folklore converge in Tomboy (Chłopczyca), a kinetic dance-theatre performance exploring gender, memory and cultural belonging. This new interdisciplinary work is a trans coming-of-age story with a dark, supernatural twist.
After learning that as a teen, their best friend was attacked by a boy from their Polish immigrant community, a non-binary historian remembers their shared adolescence. But with each recollection, the sequence of events becomes more ambiguous, the choreography of memory more complex. Through repetition, they unravel the narrative they’ve constructed of themself, the boy, and their predatory bond. Were his actions his own, or was he cursed by a monstrous and mythic inheritance? By exploding cultural dance and genre conventions, Tomboy redefines horror, eroticism and masculinity.

This DBLSPK event is Mateusz and the team’s last round of development before the play’s world premiere at the Cultch. If you loved this showing, click here get your tickets to its full production, happening March 4-8, 2026!

The Artists

  • Stage Manager

    Alexa Fraser is a performer, designer, producer and facilitator who creates and lives on the unceded and occupied territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations colonially known as “Vancouver, British Columbia”. Alexa is a self-identified plus sized queer artist and proud performer, producer and historian within “Vancouver’s” burlesque and cabaret scenes. They are a graduate of Simon Fraser School for the Contemporary Arts, holding a BFA in Theatre Performance (2018). They are currently a recipient within the Associated Designers of Canada (ADC) 2025 Mentorship Cohort, working alongside legendary fashion designer Evan Clayton on his upcoming collection premiering October 30th, 2025. Recent theatre work includes: Eurydice Fragments (Debi Wong, 2024), Nuits Claires: Double Vie (Anais West, 2024), God's A Drag (PTC, 2024), Ayibobo III: Little Dollhouse on the Prairie (frank theatre, QAF, Danse-Cité, and the House of Barbara, 2024), Fat Joke (Neworld Theatre, 2024), Tomboy (Chłopczyca) (Anais West, 2024), Blood Wedding: A Trans Fantasia (Angelica Schwartz, 2023, 2024), Divine Figures (Neworld Theatre, 2023), sᴜᴘᴇʀ ʜᴇᴀᴠʏ Pop III 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍꧂°¤𖦹,¸.•*☆ (Jarin Schexnider, 2023), Archive (The Darlings, 2023), Gestural Symphony No.1 (theatrecorps, 2022), Are You Watching? (Eve Middleton- Meyer, 2021), New Societies (Summerworks, In The Soil, Kick & Push, rEvolver, SFU SCA 2019-2023), Juicy Gems (2021), Richmond Maritime Festival Featured Storyteller (2020), The Democratic Set (Back to Back Theatre, PuSh Festival 2020), These Violent Delights (Cole Lewis, SummerWorks Festival, 2017). Alexa’s other interests reside in researching and sharing “Vancouver” nightlife and sex work history, collecting vintage cabaret and playboy ephemera as well as walking an adorable himbo pomeranian while watching the sun set on the Salish Sea/Fraser River in their former neighborhood in “Richmond, B.C”. They just want to have a good time, for a long time.

  • Playwright & Collaborator

    Mateusz (they/he) is a trans playwright, actor and producer, as well as a Polish settler on occupied xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) lands (colonially known as Vancouver). Mateusz’ interdisciplinary plays include Underground Absolute Fiction (Rumble Theatre, Vancouver); Poly Queer Love Ballad (Queer Arts Festival, frank theatre and Zee Zee Theatre, Vancouver, and Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto); and The Café (Aphotic Theatre, ITSAZOO and PuSh Festival, Vancouver). As an actor, they’ve performed with the National Arts Centre, The Only Animal, Savage Society, Firehall Arts Centre, Théâtre La Seizième, and more. Mateusz has been nominated for two Jessies, including Outstanding Original Script, and was the 2023 winner of the Wildfire National Playwriting Competition for his play Tomboy (Chłopzcyca), premiering at the Cultch in 2026. His writing was also published in This is Beyond: A Time Capsule of Queer Experience (Playwrights Canada Press.) Mateusz is the frank theatre’s Artistic Producer.

  • Performer, Konrad

    Calder White is a freelance dance artist based on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. He is an alumnus of Tkaronto's Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre and holds a BFA in Dance from the Ohio State University. He has originated roles in work by notable choreographers including Shay Kuebler, Joshua Beamish, Ziyian Kwan, and Rachel Meyer. His own choreography has been commissioned by institutions across North America, including Ohio Dance Festival, Dancing on the Edge, and Danceworks Toronto. He is the proud recipient of the 2022 Hnatyshyn Foundation's Ukraine -Heritage, Spirit, and Future award for Exceptional Talent in Contemporary Dance.

  • Performer, Hania

    Emily is an actor, voice instructor and musician based (mostly) in Treaty 1 Territory. She’s passionate about accessible arts education, queer theatre, and ghost stories. Her credits include playing "Hansel" in A Merry Crip-mas Panto (Sick+Twisted), “Waabishkizi” in White Girls in Moccasins (the Frank), “The Collector” in Mx (The Cultch), and “Sara Jean” in Infinity (Volcano Theatre/The Cultch). She has taught with institutions such as VFS, Arts Club Actors Intensive, and RealWheels Acting Academy. A graduate of the Studio 58 Acting Program, she also studied Voice Pedagogy through a specialized mentorship at the school. You can often find her napping, trying to sew things without looking up instructions, and seeking out sheet music for the Sick+Twisted Drop-In Choir (which she directs and is very excited about).

  • Dramaturg & Collaborator

    Joanna (any pronouns) is Playwrights Theatre Centre's Artistic Director and Dramaturg. Joanna sees dramaturgy as a practice of investigation, research, advice, and advocacy. Joanna is a frequent mentor, collaborator, and teacher, within PTC and outside of it; and would like their projects to speak for the practice. Joanna is humbled to have long and repeating working relationships with playwrights and choreographers, and looks to meet them continually with curiosity and rigour. Recent/current dramaturgy includes: Kamila Sediego’s Engkanto, José Teodoro’s Binary Star, Christina Cook’s Postcards to My Younger Transsexual Self, Tara Cheyenne’s Pants, and Anais West's Tomboy (Chłopczyca).

  • Choreographer & Collaborator

    Oh Augustine (they/them) is a contemporary dance artist/teacher/choreographer, currently based on the unceded and occupied Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and səl̓ílwətaʔ lands. After completing one year in ITP and one year in The Source Dance Company, Oh trained with Modus Operandi for four years, completing their post secondary contemporary dance education. They have had the opportunity to partake in rehearsal process with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Shay Kuebler RSA, Khoudia Toure, Chimerik 似不像 Collective, Okam's Racer, Co.ERASGA, and Zahra Shahab among others, as well as performed in the EDAM Spring Choreographic Series in 2022. Their work as a choreographer mainly focuses on neurodivergence, gender exploration, pleasure, spirituality, and sensation. Their work has been showcased in 12 Minutes Max, Boombox Split Screen, The Happening Accelerate 4.0 alongside Kate Franklin, Chalk It Up!, and Studio Salon Series to name a few. As a teacher, they frequently teach at MO Link Program, TSV Working Class, The Source Dance Company, and multiple studios across BC. Currently, Oh has been working as the choreographer in an original play “Tomboy” written by Anais West since 2023, and is working as a collaborator in a opaqueREFUSALS directed by danielle Mackenzie Long.

  • Audio Engineer/Pronunciation Consultant

    Piotr Wieczorek (he) is a recording producer, sound designer and scholar of English (UBC) who tries to live in the world through an intersection of language, music and, broadly, sound, hopefully and hopelessly believing in the terrible beauty of focused aesthetic attention. Classically-trained, yet classically deviant. As a queer immigrant scholar of English, his research interests lie between poetry and poetics, sound studies, queer studies, critical race studies and psychoanalysis. He is currently writing on the figure of loop in non-representational (post)-modern poetics, tracing relationships between repetition-based music forms and the poetry of Gertrude Stein and M. NourbeSe Philip. His recordings won Album of the Year Fryderyk Awards of Polish Phonographic Academy (2018, 2020; Hania Rani, Dariusz Przybylski), as well as an Honorable Mention at the 140th Audio Engineering Society Convention in Paris (2016). In 2025, "Symphonies of Mother and Child" by Nova Pon, of his production, featuring the Turning Point Ensemble, won the composer a nomination for Classical Composer of the Year by Western Canadian Music Awards.

  • Performer, Aleks

    Based out of the land of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, Rae Takei (they/he) is a creative collaborator, Jessie-nominated actor, and ice cream enthusiast who has devoted the last decade to the imaginings of their drag persona, Rose Butch. Rae is a graduate of Studio 58.

  • Sound Designer

    Roxanne Nesbitt is a designer, composer, and sound artist. Following formal studies in classical double bass and architecture, Roxanne works between the fields of music and design. Her research explores radical instrument design, the meeting place of composition and improvisation, sculptural ceramics and participatory sound installation. Roxanne collaborates with writers, musicians, composers, and choreographers to create work. Her instruments have been played across North America including performances at Gadeamus Muziekweek in Utrecht, November Music in Den Bosch, Bauchhund in Berlin, Array Space in Toronto, and the Center for New Music in San Francisco. Roxanne is working toward making her experimental instrument designs into accessible public art works. She celebrates process making work that is intimate, inquisitive, and exploratory. Roxanne is currently based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, Canada.

Voice Actors:
Julia Kuzka | Teresa Berdys | Piotr Wieczorek | Alek Cisak

Content Warnings

Representations of misogyny and homophobia (including slurs), references to religious trauma and parental physical abuse, as well as descriptions of blood, violence and sex (including rough sex). A trans character is also deadnamed and misgendered, but this occurs in memory, before they socially transitioned.

About the DBLSPK Program

DBLSPK (doublespeak) is a recurring rice & beans program that examines the relationship between language and culture within performance and storytelling. By collaborating with artists who work with elements of translation and/or multilingual creation, we examine the relationship between language and culture within performance. During DBLSPK, resident artists have the opportunity to work in the studio with a team of collaborators and then present excerpts of their work at a workshop-setting public performance. The artist then engages with the audience in a conversation post-show, taking a deep dive into the research topics related to their project. In addition to our usual DBLSPK programming, in 2023, the national Polyphonic Multilingual Creation Residency was also added to provide an elongated development process to two projects: one local and one out-of-town. DBLSPK began in 2017 and has since featured over 15 languages, such as Portuguese, Farsi, Tagalog, Cantonese, Spanish, and more! 

Acknowledgements

The DBLSPK Program would not be possible without the support of our amazing donors, as well as our funders: Canadian Heritage, The Canada Council for the Arts, The BC Arts Council, The Province of BC and The City of Vancouver.