Review: My Pregnant Brother (SummerWorks)

(photo credit: Pam Price)

Is the personal too personal?
by Beat Rice

My Pregnant Brother is a one-woman show written and performed by Johanna Nutter,  directed and dramaturged by Jeremy Taylor. Nutter tells a very personal story about her family and their unbelievable circumstances that the show’s title hints at. The story is so far fetched you almost can’t believe it, but Nutter plays herself, and is honest, genuine, and just dramatic enough to keep us with her. She tells the story of how her brother was born her sister, of her mother’s confusion, and of her struggle to keep the family all together. Nutter’s brother is transgendered, and has a relationship with a man who gets him pregnant. After giving birth, he moves to Vancouver and gives his child away to a woman who responded to his post on the Internet. 

First-Person: Johanna Nutter on My Pregnant Brother (SummerWorks)

Starting SummerWorks
by Johanna Nutter
[ED: This article is a reprint from Ms Nutter's blog. You can follow the entire saga of My Pregnant Brother at the company website mypregnantbrother.com]

For those of you who followed my Good People blogs in Boston, you’ll understand why the picture at the top was a funny thing to walk past on my way to Theatre Passe Muraille. 

Interview with Johanna Nutter of My Pregnant Brother (SummerWorks)

I can quite clearly say that it’s not for me to answer trans-gender questions...I can tell you what it’s like to be the sister of a trans-gendered person.

Upstage - Theatre on Radio (CKUT, Montreal) host Eric Sukhu spoke with Playwright/Performer Johanna Nutter about My Pregnant Brother presented as part of SummerWorks. [This article first appeared at The Charlebois Post - Montreal]

UPSTAGE:   There’s likely many people who haven’t seen it yet. Tell us about it.

NUTTER:  It played in English at Centaur, and at La Licorne in French. Often I had to explain to people - I know it sounds like a stand up show but it’s not. Now I have to do the opposite because it [was] in the Just For Laughs Festival and Zoofest.

My Pregnant Brother might sound like a Howie Mandel routine. But it’s not. It’s a true story about me and my family. My brother is trans-gendered. He used to be my sister. In 2006 he stopped taking his hormone injections and during that time he got pregnant. He decided to keep the baby and was hoping that I would join him and the three of us would become a family together.