Fado: The Saddest Music in the World

Fado is the story of a young singer, Luisa, who arrives home to her apartment in Surrey, BC, to find her mother, Rosida, collapsed on the floor, weeping, because the greatest fado singer of all time, Amalia Rodrigues, has died. Luisa realizes she doesn’t know how to sing a single Portuguese song, because she and her mother moved outside the community after Luisa’s dad died. She decides to save money to take them on the trip of a lifetime, back to Lisbon.

When they arrive, Rosida is overcome with feeling for all she has lost, and Luisa discovers Rosida’s favourite fado is fascist. Heartbroken, she begins wandering the back alleys and streets of old Lisbon, where the music was born. Luisa discovers that her path to reclaiming her culture is as curving and mysterious as the back alleys of Lisbon, winding through queer fado, fados of resistance, immigrant fados, fuelled by her desire to find her own true song.

Playing sold-out crowds in Vancouver and Victoria in 2018 and 2019, Fado won the following awards and distinctions:

Sure Fire List (the top 23 most producible plays in Canada by women), Playwrights Guild of Canada

Top Unproduced Latinx Plays in the U.S., 50 Playwrights, 2018

Favourite Musical, Intrepid Theatre Society, Victoria, 2018