First-Person: Michaela di Cesare on the evolution of Eight Ways My Mother Was Conceived

From one-woman (in every sense of the word) FRINGE show to true team effort

How this remount changes everything

by Michaela di Cesare

I was asked how the input of a new director, Tamara Brown, has taken 8 Ways my Mother was Conceived from a FRINGE production to something “more mainstage.”

This is going to be a little metaphysical. I can’t help it. Everything to do with this show has come about through a series of drastic life-changing events that have unfolded over a two-year period from the fall of 2009 to the fall of 2011 (roughly) which could not have fallen into place in a more literary fashion if they were being written into a novel. I’m only going to list the uncanny events that have to do with Tamara (because I think people are tired of hearing the story about how I fell in love and got married). I’ll begin by saying that in some ways her influence has been there from the beginning.

Sunday Feature: Michaela di Cesare on remounting 8 Ways

Testing the Scripture 

Possible outcomes of a remount of 8 Ways my Mother was Conceived among its very subjects

by Michaela Di Cesare

Then Jesus told them, "A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family." – Mark 6:4

When I was invited to a meeting with the National Congress of Italian Canadians at the gilded monument we call the Leonardo Da Vinci Center in St-Leonard, shortly before my run at FRINGE had begun, I thought only one of two things could happen:

• I’d walk through a large, ornate door that would shut mysteriously behind me, after which I’d find myself facing the back of a tall chair. Following my tentative hello, the chair would swivel slowly, revealing a fat gangster chewing on a cigar. With a subtle gesture he would then summon his goons, willing them to appear from where they had been lurking in the shadows. At which point they’d put a bag over my head, tell me I had dishonored my people and must be silenced. And before I knew it, I’d be swimming with the fishes… Or this more pleasant version:
• I’d walk through the door, swivel, yadda yadda—but then I’d be offered a bazillion dollars to make the play a propaganda piece for the Italian community and tour the world with it, accompanied by my very own pair of goons who I’d affectionately name Sal and Vinny-- following a soul-searching pondering of my artistic integrity, of course.

Review: 8 Ways My Mother Was Conceived (Fringe 2011)

Reviewed by Gaëtan L. Charlebois


Michaela Di Cesare, star of this solo, is an insanely likable performer. Di Cesare the writer is incredibly intelligent and has a terrific story to tell that doesn't go a word longer than necessary—this show does not overstay its welcome (which, at 75 minutes in a Fringe venue is a feat in and of itself). Simply, Charlebois, the jaded Fringe-goer, came out of this one in an incredibly good mood with bits and pieces of this supposedly true tale embroidered on his memory. Was Di Cesare's mother the product of a virgin birth? Is it true, as her mother told her, that straight men don't read? Is the dark-skinned Di Cesare a true Di Cesare or the result of a faux-pas with an errant milk boy? Finally, is a good story better than the truth?