Lock your trash bins and oil your drain pipes. Raccoon is QUEEN in the city. 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. The story 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.
The show is written and performed by Alexandra Simpson and Morgan Brie Johnson with dramaturgy and direction by Justin Miller.
Pest Me Pet Me had a workshop performance in February 2020 at Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace as well as three performances at Undercurrents Festival in 2023. We are currently seeking further development and performance opportunities.
Special thanks to Brian Quirt for dramaturgical support, Heather Marie Annis for directing our 2020 workshop of this show, and Caitlin Farley for stage management and technical design support at Undercurrents.
Animacy Theatre Collective graciously acknowledges the support of the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and the Artscape Backstage Program.
Photography by Kathryn Hanson, ShutteredEye.ca
