Root Sky Productions
Root Sky Productions was formed in 1997 by Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold to produce theatre and other arts projects with a cultural and political focus. The company is devoted primarily, but not exclusively, to producing work on Indigenous and Metis subjects.
Darrell Racine
Darrell Racine has three new plays, co-written with Dale Lakevold, in their series of plays on Indigenous culture and history in Canada. The first play, Owl Calling/IAP (2020), is about the residential school settlement process in Canada.,
Their second play, Franklin’s Fate (2021), is about Metis Alexander Isbister’s involvement in the search for the Franklin expedition. Their latest play She-She Quois Rattle (2022) explores the legacy of the Sixties Scoop in the lives of two survivors, one Metis and the other Cree, who were adopted and fostered into white families. Each of the three has received workshops and readings facilitated by the Manitoba Association of Playwrights. They are unproduced.
Darrell Racine’s play Misty Lake, co-written with Dale Lakevold, has been produced in Alberta and BC, and throughout Manitoba. In Calgary it was produced at the 2002 Crazy Horse Aboriginal Theatre Festival with Tina Keeper and Tantoo Cardinal in the cast. Misty Lake was published in a new edition in 2006 by Loon Books with a teachers resource guide made available in 2009.
His play Stretching Hide, also co-written with Dale Lakevold, was produced by Theatre Projects Manitoba in collaboration with Root Sky Productions, in Winnipeg in 2007. It received a workshop production at the Weesagachak Begins to Dance Festival by the Native Earth Theatre Company in Toronto in 2005. Stretching Hide was published by Scirocco Drama in 2007 and is now in its second printing. It won the Theatre BC Canadian National Playwriting Competition in 2003. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Cambridge University, and holds a doctorate from Oxford University. He lives in Brandon where he teaches in the Department of Native Studies at Brandon University.
Dale Lakevold
Dale Lakevold is a playwright from Minnedosa, Manitoba. He has had about 50 professional and independent productions of his plays since 1996. His plays include Wild Geese and Cross Creek (University of Winnipeg); Stretching Hide, L-Love’s Body, and Never Never Mind, Kurt Kurt Cobain (Theatre Projects Manitoba); Notes Toward a Speech Re: My Ex- (Theatre Excavations); Under Western Eyes (Brandon University and Root Sky); October/Octubre (Brandon University and Root Sky); and Making L-Love’s Body (Brandon University).
His audio theatre installation Notes for a Speech on (Canadian) Flagmaking was produced at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in 2003 by the Brandon Arts Collective. His play Track Records won the DuMaurier National Playwriting Competition in 1996. He was nominated for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer in Manitoba in 1999. He teaches English and Creative Writing at Brandon University. He is a member of the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, the Playwrights Guild of Canada, and the Brandon University Faculty Association.