The Cultch opens its 2024/2025 season by presenting Cliff Cardinal’s As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement, a production from Crow’s Theatre (Toronto), September 25-29 at the York Theatre, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Taking its title from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, offering a double meaning that suggests this is a show to please all tastes. Is that possible? Shakespeare’s comedy is a timeless tale of mistaken identities, banishment, and forgiveness which takes on an entirely new meaning in As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement, a play that baits and switches an audience expecting the bard’s classic. Written, created, and performed by Cliff Cardinal, whose Cree and Lakota heritage deeply informs his perspective, As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement, is a devastating yet laugh-out-loud examination of land acknowledgements as cultural and political practice.
When it premiered in 2021—at Streetcar Crowsnest in Toronto, on September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation—it was billed as “William Shakespeare’s AS YOU LIKE IT, A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal”. Audiences were kept in the dark about the details of the show, fully expecting to see a version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It until they were sitting in their seats when they were surprised by Cardinal’s mischievous play. At the end of each performance, audiences were asked to maintain secrecy to ensure the surprise for future patrons.
Despite the ruse and the mystery surrounding it, Cardinal’s show generated enormous buzz gaining momentum as it toured around Canada, including a sold-out run in February 2022 at The Cultch’s York Theatre as part of PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.
Winning the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, the peer assessment committee stated, “In a blistering indictment of the country we call Canada, Cliff Cardinal challenges us to ask ourselves what role we play and are prepared to play on the path forward. It spares no one, not even the performer himself. It’s a rant, a fool, a stand-up routine and an angry personal essay full of humour, insights and surprises.”
As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement continues to be a hit, drawing large audiences as it travels across the country, coming to The Cultch York Theatre, September 25-29, to kick off the 24/25 season.
Find more information and tickets online at thecultch.com