Ideas·CBC MASSEY LECTURES

How to get tickets to a live recording of Tomson Highway's 2022 CBC Massey Lectures

In September, the legendary Tomson Highway will be touring his 2022 Massey Lectures to five cities across Canada: Fredericton, St. John's, Saskatoon, Vancouver and Toronto. The series will be broadcast on IDEAS and CBC Listen in November.

The Massey Lectures will take place in 5 cities and be broadcast on IDEAS this fall

CBC Radio · Posted: Jul 22, 2022 10:29 AM EDT | Last Updated: July 22, 2022

A man laughs while covering his mouth with his hand. A book cover depicts the title, Laughing with the Trickster, with an image of a raven. — In 2022 Massey Lectures, Cree author Tomson Highway takes the audience on an exhilarating journey through language, creation, humour, sex and gender, and death, and how these ideas are expressed in Indigenous culture. (Sean Howard/House of Anansi Press)

After a two-year hiatus, the CBC Massey Lectures are back on the road touring across Canada.

This year, Cree author and playwright Tomson Highway brings his signature irreverence to his 2022 Massey Lectures, Laughing With the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions, published by House of Anansi. He explores five themes central to the human condition: language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death.

Throughout his lectures, Highway offers generous personal anecdotes, including ones of his beloved accordion-playing father, and plentiful Trickster stories. He reveals how Christian, Classical and Cree mythologies have given form and substance to Western thought, life, and culture — and points to how Indigenous mythologies provide unique solutions to our modern problems.

Tomson Highway to explore life through laughter in 2022 CBC Massey Lectures

In 2021, Highway's memoir, Permanent Astonishment, won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. His work also includes the plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, the bestselling novel Kiss of the Fur Queen, and the books Caribou Song, Dragon Fly Kites, and Fox on the Ice. He is a member of the Barren Lands First Nation and lives in Gatineau, Quebec.

Highway will visit five Canadian provinces in September for a live recording of his Massey Lectures. The cities are Fredericton, St. John's, Saskatoon, Vancouver and Toronto. The series will be broadcast on CBC Radio's IDEAS and CBC's Listen starting November 14, 2022.

Tickets will be on sale through the theatre box offices starting the first week of August — but there is a presale starting July 25 that offers a discount.

Fredericton | Wednesday, September 7

Fredericton Playhouse
686 Queen St.
7:00 p.m.
Tickets go on sale: Aug 2. Presale: July 25
Pre-Sale Code: MASSEY 2022
Box office: http://tickets.theplayhouse.ca/ (add presale/promo code top left)
Phone: 506-458-8344

St. John's | Friday, September 9

D.F. Cook Recital Hall, Memorial University
Burton's Pond Rd.
7:00 p.m
Tickets go on sale: Aug 2. Presale: July 25
Pre-Sale Code: MASSEY 2022
Order tickets online through ticketpro.ca
Box office: https://ww3.ticketpro.ca/
Phone 888-311-9090

Saskatoon | Wednesday, September 14

Broadway Theatre
715 Broadway Ave.
7:00 p.m.
Tickets go on sale: Aug 2. Presale: July 25
Pre-Sale Code: MASSEY 2022
Tickets: https://broadwaytheatre.ca/events
Phone: 306 652 6556

Vancouver | Friday, September 16

York Theatre
639 Commercial Dr.
7:00 p.m.
Tickets go on sale: Aug 2. Presale: July 25
Pre-Sale Code: MASSEY 2022
Order tickets online
Box Office: https://thecultch.com/tickets/box-office/
Phone: 604-251-1363

Toronto | Friday, September 23

Koerner Hall
TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, 273 Bloor St W.
7.00p.m.
Tickets go on sale: Aug 2. Presale: July 25
Pre-Sale Code: MASSEY 2022
Order tickets online
Box Office: 416-408-0208 x255

The CBC Massey Lectures is a partnership between CBC, House of Anansi Press and Massey College at the University of Toronto, providing a forum where contemporary thinkers can explore important issues of our time.