Ballad of the Shark de Triomphe
You’ve never met a pirate ’til you’ve met the likes of us,
We aren’t very likeable: we smell, we cheat, we cuss.
Our motto is so simple and plain for all to see.
“What’s yours is ours, what’s ours is ours,
“Til the end of eternity.
What happens when three clumsy, colonizing, red-nosed pirates named Ratt, Spatt and Knat haul in a catch called Ku? Bad enough Ku has a different culture, different language and different perspective. Worse still, Ku has a blue nose.
“Bluenose is a lighthearted romp on the high seas with a powerful undercurrent…Playwright Emil Sher deftly weaves insolence with insight, coaxing laughs while encouraging thought.”
– Kathryn Greenaway, Gazette Montreal
Bluenose is a play for young audiences that Emil wrote for Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop and Geordie Productions. A lively romp featuring physical humour and music, Bluenose toured Montreal-area schools in February 2003. A swashbuckling, comedic tale about culture clashes and cultural assumptions, Bluenose provides a glimpse at small-scale imperialism as it unfolds on the Shark de Triomphe, a cluttered, foul-smelling ship.
It has toured Southern Ontario, (Carousel Players), Nova Scotia (Neptune Theatre) and Saskatchewan (Persephone) and been staged in Cape Breton (Boardmore Theatre) and California (Mammoth Lakes Repertory). Bluenose had its U.S. premiere at Seattle Children’s Theatre in 2008, and was remounted in Montreal by Black Theatre Workshop in 2017.