Charlie Petch : part one

Charlie Petch (they/them, he/him) is a disabled/queer/transmasculine multidisciplinary artist who resides in Tkaronto/Toronto. A poet, playwright, librettist, musician, lighting designer, and host, Petch was the 2017 Poet of Honour for SpeakNorth national festival, winner of the Golden Beret lifetime achievement in spoken word with The League of Canadian Poets (2020), and founder of Hot Damn it's a Queer Slam. Petch is a touring performer, as well as a mentor and workshop facilitator. In 2021, they are launching "Daughter of Geppetto", a multimedia/dance/music/performance poetry piece with Wind in the Leaves (TBA), their first full length poetry collection Why I Was Late with Brick Books, and their libretto "Medusa's Children" with Opera QTO.  

What are you working on?  

I’m working on my next manuscript, loosely titled “Poetic Monologues”. I’m both revamping some spoken word theatre pieces, and creating new works that exist somewhere between monologue and poetry. Like most larger works, I started it with a mapping, a kind of installation art piece thinking about where I am already, where I could go, and how it can be presented both on the page, and off, in accessible ways. I recently had to take the wall installation down and am now putting it together from the little nest of papers, feathers, bits of cloth and laminated pigeons (by Emmie Tsumura). I’ve been using the pidgeons to indicate the more “bouffon clown” poems. Comedic placement and timing is everything in a manuscript. It’s been very fun to go through my old plays and find those gems that are monologue/poetry.   

I’m also refining my new spoken word play “no one’s special at the hot dog cart” which is part poetry/storytelling/music and de-escalation workshop with the premise “Everything I needed to know about emergency response, I learned as a teenage hot dog vendor in downtown Toronto”. I’ll be doing a development workshop with Theatre Passe Muraille in March for their “The Buzz” series for new works. I’m very honoured to have DM St Bernard and Adam Lazarus signed on for this process.