Kevin Loring
Where the Blood Mixes
Drama English-Language
Kevin Loring, Vancouver,
Where the Blood Mixes.
(Talonbooks;
distributed by Publishers Group Canada)
(ISBN 978-0-88922-608-1)
Biography
With Where the Blood Mixes, first-time playwright Kevin Loring has already been recognized with a premiere at the international Luminato Festival and five nominations for the Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards (including Outstanding Original Script and the Sydney Risk Prize for an Outstanding Original Script by an Emerging Playwright). The play will tour nationally, as part of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad. A member of the Nlaka'pamux First Nation, he based the play on his hometown of Lytton, B.C., known as “Kumsheen” in the Nlaka'pamux language, which means: “the place inside the heart where the blood mixes.” Kevin Loring is already known to theatre audiences as an actor, with leading roles in numerous acclaimed plays, including Marie Clement's Burning Vision and Copper Thunderbird, and George Ryga's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. He currently lives in Vancouver.
Jury's comment
An abducted daughter returns to her wounded community after many years away. Kevin Loring illuminates the complex aftermath of the residential school system and the circumstances of contemporary Aboriginal history through compelling, sympathetic and humorous characters who live as best they can, with courage and strength.