Everyone is going around speaking Italian. When they’re not speaking Italian, they’re speaking other languages with Italian accents. I try not to speak at all so tourists will think I’m Italian and mysterious. Even when Italians say things like, Please pass the butter, it sounds like, Shall we make love in a tender field of lace? I feel conversant already. Hey you! Il cucchiaio! (Hey you! Spoon!) This can also mean: Come here and spoon with … [Read more...]
BERNARDINE’S BEAUTIFUL BRAINS!
Welcome to my world in this moment:
In 2021 I had two books published, made a new musical and piloted a new theatre festival, fostered three beagles, performed in two amazing plays, and continued to wake up alive.
I adore and respect my publishers, Breakwater Books and Problematic Press. The covers of my books speak loads about the love, fun and heart I've poured into each story.
"Girls From Away" is the untold true story of the hundreds of young women from Newfoundland who migrated to Ontario in the 1940's to work at Dominion Woollens and then proceeded to change the place forever. It's a play, a CBC radio documentary, and on the way to being a book! We are hopeful for a proper 2022 fully-fledged season of The Kitchen Party Theatre Festival in Grand Falls-Windsor, NL.
Girl Power is a feminist theatre company I formed in 2001. I wrote a play called "Ophelia Swims" for young performers and we performed it at the LSPU Hall. It's about Ophelia, and a bunch of other female Shakespearean characters, who meet up with a bunch of fairytale characters, like Cinderella, and they decide to rebel and rewrite their own stories to reflect their own power. I'm in the process of rewriting it and you can find out more under My Story. As Cinderella says, "It's not the glass slipper, it's the glass ceiling does my head in."
Remember to celebrate your beautiful brains in some way today and everyday, and thanks for spending some time here. More soon!
Girly Muckle and the Queer Hands.
A Selkie isn't a cutie-pie creature. So don't go imagining, like, the mermaid from that warped Disney movie. We don't swim around with our boobs covered in seashells, with roses draped around our curvy fins. We don't dance with lobsters at the bottom of the ocean. We eat them with our bare teeth. … [Read more...]
Remember to love life.
I thought I would remind myself, and the Unity-Verse, that I published two books last year. For some reason it's been easy for me to forget. Some days I struggle to remember my accomplishments. I'm going to remedy that feeling by sharing a review of my books from the always thoughtful and talented Joan Sullivan. This article was published in the Telegram on September 2, 2021. Read on, and thanks so much for spending time with this: Publishing a book is an accomplishment; having two released … [Read more...]
CEREAL KILLERS IN LOVE!!!
JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWE' VALENTINE'S DAY! A SERIAL THRILLER FILLED WITH ROMANCE, LOVE, CEREAL, AND MURDER. A TEN DOLLAR SUBSCRIPTION GETS YOU A SIX PART SERIES, PART ONE TODAY! EACH SUBSEQUENT CHAPTER ARRIVES AT YOUR IN-BOX ON THE 14TH OF EACH MONTH. SEND YOUR REQUEST AND E-TRANSFER TO STAPLETONB@BELLALIANT.NET. THIS CREEPY CREATION COMES TO YOU FROM THE BRILLIA BEWILDERING MINDS OF BERNARDINE ANN TERAZ STAPLETON & NICOLE LENORA SMITH. … [Read more...]
Cereal Killers in Love
This is a little something myself and Nicole Lenora Smith got up to during the pandemic. Details are coming your way very soon. Twenty instalments over the next ten months, just two dollars per thrill! (instalment.) Details pending! … [Read more...]
Kitchen Party Theatre Festival Podcast!
Feeling all the love today for the inaugural Kitchen Party Theatre Festival podcast: From our Kitchen to Yours! We've been asking all our guests: What does home mean to you? Share your thoughts with us on our Facebook Page! … [Read more...]
Silent Theatre Pitcher Show
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/silent-theatre-pitcher-show-tickets-116887703267 This is the first theatre performance, possibly, where you must turn your cell phone on! The rings and dings of incoming messages are not only welcome, but necessary! When you buy a ticket for my performance, at eventbrite.com, be sure to send me your cell number. Throughout my show you will receive a series of texts that will function in the same way as the captions of the silent movies of … [Read more...]
Dear Earth.
Dear Earth. Today you have the stage. Your performance is forever. Yesterday I felt important until I remembered dinosaurs. People made Art before there were words. I will plant my journals to grow word flowers which will speak to bees who will pollinate us with hope. A thousand years from now our work will live in a cloud that no one knows about, except for you, and when it rains you will receive us again. Love from me, to all of us who are so lucky to dwell here and bear witness. … [Read more...]
Insomnia: A Love Story.
Insomnia: A Love Story. Here you are once again. Wrapped around me at 4 a.m. Humming in my ear. Look out, you say. Look out. Look out for what? There is a breath of angels in the sky. Now a puppy. Now a dragon. Now it’s now. Oh. What should we think about? The bills? The shifting nature of nature? No. Not tonight. It’s not technically night. It’s 4 in the morning. It’s morning time. Mourning time. For what? For the day we will use up without thinking. Aren’t I … [Read more...]
HOW TO BE A WRITER IN ONLY 60 YEARS!
On the first day of my official residency at MUN I burbled around the campus, giddy from having said hello to Andrew Loman and Lisa Moore AT THE SAME TIME. Today I am spending my day in bed because I am writing My Bed Play. It will be performed in my bed as part of my residency. My mother said to me one time, “Your grandfather never had his name written down.” I asked her what she meant by that. She said, “No one ever wrote his name down anywhere. Not in history books or newspapers.” He … [Read more...]