WATCH / REVIEWS MAKE TITTY CAKES ABOUT THE SHOW TRIGGER WARNINGS

 

For a list of potential triggers, please see the Trigger Warnings

Reviews

“[The sold-out run is] a testament to both the fearlessness of Peterborough theatre artist Sarah McNeilly and the subject matter of her bold new solo work.”
— kawarthaNOW

“Titty Cakes evades the pitfalls of trauma porn, while having all the earmarks of the classic hero’s journey … This is a story that must be told by the person who lived it … Somewhere between the raw confessional of the Vagina Monologues and the cultural analysis of Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, McNeilly seeks to gain control of the narrative.”
 — Trout in Plaid

“Not just an ode to survival, but also a love letter to self. I can’t say enough how beautiful this work is!”
— Smokii Sumac (You Are Enough: Love Poems for the End of the World)

“Sarah McNeilly offers eloquence, honesty, fierceness, humour, and humanity. She is absolutely fearless, even when she’s scared to death … a must-see for anyone who understands the transformative power of theatre.”
— Linda Kash (Cinderella Man, Waiting for Guffman)

Make Titty Cakes!

Jump To Recipe

It was snowing. Out of season. That much I remember. A snowfall in May—unusual, uncanny —is quite unforgettable.

That’s how these food blogs start, isn’t it?

You know the ones, where you’re forced to learn about the blogger’s great-great-grandma when you just want to make some cakes? Mind you, I doubt those typical food blogs require such extensive trigger warnings.

Writing trigger warnings for your own life story is an interesting exercise.

If you haven’t already, you may want to pause to read the Trigger Warnings. Or you can just skip to the Recipe below. That’s what I normally do when encountering these types of blogs.

But if you’re curious, if you’d like to learn why it is I so urgently needed to make these cakes, and why I sincerely hope you make them too, then please do read on.



It was time for a new tradition.

For years, I thought about going back there. To the ditch where it happened.

I thought about holding a funeral, of sorts. About privately laying a wreath on the ground where she died. Or some other ceremonial gesture to mark her passing. I wanted—needed—to do something. Something sacred.

But I didn’t.

Year after year, the anniversary would come and go. And year after year I would think about doing something—anything. Something to give me closure. To help me heal.

Instead, I would do quite the opposite. I would mark each anniversary with self-destruction. A strange drunken ritual akin to self-flagellation, I would drink the same brand of whiskey I had consumed that snowy night in May.

The night I was gang-raped. And left in the ditch for dead; snow falling on my naked body. The night a part of me died.

Every year, on May 10th, I would yearn for something sacred while desecrating my body-temple with poisonous substances. Hating myself. Punishing myself. Trying to exterminate myself.

But the fourteenth anniversary was different.

I couldn’t possibly drink myself sick that year (though I certainly wanted to). I couldn’t because I had to go to the hospital that day.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer. On the fourteenth anniversary of when I was gang-raped. The same day. May 10th. The same fucking day.

It felt like I was cursed.

With no family history whatsoever, it seemed impossible for me to have breast cancer at the age of 30. And of all the body parts to get sick, it had to be my breasts? I couldn’t shake the feeling that my rapists had harboured those fourteen long years, festering away inside my breasts; that there was a connection between my rape and my cancer. Beyond the cruel, cosmic calendrical coincidence. It’s all connected. All of it. It all.

Magical thinking’s a sign of insanity. Or so said my former therapist.

After a disruptive and rather harrowing year, in which I bid farewell to my both my beautiful breasts and went straight to “flat” (refused reconstructive surgery) after a bilateral mastectomy, I found myself—cancer-free—marking my very first “double anniversary.”


Oh, the double anniversary!

May 10th. The day I was raped, savagely and repeatedly. May 10th. The day I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which led to the amputation of my breasts. At age 31.

I know my therapist said that magical thinking’s a sign of insanity but come on! On that first “double anniversary,” I reached a new level of self-loathing, somehow hating myself—blaming myself—more than ever. Not only for getting drunk enough to be gang-raped, but also for coping so poorly; for abusing my body for so long, to such an extent that I would get cancer at an unusually young age.

Drinking, smoking, and a history of using drugs are, after all, risk factors for breast cancer.

I spent two agonizing May 10ths—two “double-anniversaries”—reeling in the shame of sexual assault, compounded by the shame of cancer.

All while ensuring my carefully constructed exterior continued to appear “fine.”


But then everything changed.

It came back. I got cancer. Again. Two and a half years after my first cancer diagnosis, I found myself gearing up for another agonizing year of surgeries and treatments.

My penchant for self-destruction stronger than ever before, I came dangerously close to breaking a promise I made to my mother after my first and only suicide attempt.

But I didn’t break the promise. I broke the curse instead.

I forgave myself. For all of it. It all.

I was done hating myself, done punishing myself, done trying to exterminate myself.

And, for the first time ever, I asked for help.

A dear friend invited me to participate in a closed practice. Ceremony. A privilege and an honour. To respect the traditional protocols of the Indigenous Peoples who so graciously helped me, I won’t say anything more about it here.

But I will say that the experience fundamentally changed my life. In every possible way.

I quit drinking. I quit smoking. I quit nihilism.


Then along came Agatha.

I read about this Catholic Saint, Agatha of Sicily, patron of breast cancer patients and rape survivors (among other things).

As punishment for refusing the romantic advances of the Roman Consul, Agatha was imprisoned to a brothel and horrifically tortured, culminating in the removal of her breasts with pincers.

I’m neither Catholic nor Italian, and I’m certainly no Saint, but the parallels! I felt connected to this ancient woman through our shared experiences.

Then, I read about the funny breast-shaped cakes served at her festival called: “Minne di Sant’Agata (translation: “little breasts of Saint Agatha); or, as I like to call them: Titty Cakes! So, I started a new tradition. Something sacred. I baked and ate Titty Cakes in front of live and digital audiences—a modern day Communion of sorts—while telling Agatha’s story and my own.

And, in doing so, I made new connections. Through shared experience.

Thank you for making communion with me.

 
Titty Cakes Recipe


Makes 10 cakes

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

For the Pistachio Marzipan:

For the Cannoli Cream:

For the icing and decoration:

Instructions:

  1. Line a strainer with cheesecloth and set in a bowl. Scrape ricotta into strainer, pressing down firmly. Place a sheet of plastic wrap over top and a jar to weight it down. Refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

  2. For the sponge: Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9”x13” sheet pan and line with parchment.

  3. Combine in the bowl of a stand mixer the eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Using the whisk attachment, whip on high speed for 5 - 10 minutes until very pale and tripled in volume. Scatter the orange zest over top, and sift in the flour, about 1/3 at a time, folding in with a spatula, gently but thoroughly after each addition. Try not to deflate the mix. Pour batter into prepared pan, smoothing gently into the corners. Bake about 20 minutes, or until light gold and shrinking from sides of pan.

  4. Remove cake from oven to a wire rack and rest 5 minutes. Invert pan onto clean tea towel, peel off parchment, and cool, right side up, on wire rack for about 2 hours.

  5. For the marzipan: Pulse the pistachios in a food processor until finely ground. Scrape corners of food processor bowl to avoid lumps. Add almond flour and icing sugar, and pulse to thoroughly combine. Add almond extract and pulse to incorporate. Add egg white and corn syrup and process to the consistency of a smooth, thick dough. Turn the mixture out onto a board and knead a couple of times to make sure everything is evenly incorporated. Shape marzipan into a log and seal tightly in plastic wrap. If you need to refrigerate the marzipan, allow it to return to room temperature before rolling it out.

  6. For the Cannoli Cream: Remove the drained ricotta from fridge and pass through the strainer into a clean bowl. Combine with icing sugar, vanilla and orange zest. Add chocolate chips and mixed peel and stir in thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

  7. For Cake Construction: Remove marzipan from fridge and cut off about half marzipan log. Knead lightly and form into a disc, dusting your hands, the work surface, and the rolling pin with icing sugar. Roll out to about 1/8” thick. Using a 4” circle cutter, cut rounds of marzipan and dust with icing sugar. Knead scraps together, adding more marzipan from remainder of log as needed. Continue to roll and cut until you have 10 rounds. Liberally dust 10 3” silicone moulds with icing sugar. Press marzipan gently into moulds.

  8. Remove chilled Cannoli Cream from fridge and, using 2 spoons, firmly pack each mould with filling, leaving about ½” headroom for cake rounds.

  9. Invert the now cooled sponge cake onto a piece of waxed paper. Using a 2 3/4” circle cutter, cut 10 cake rounds, twisting the cutter for a smooth edge.

  10. Brush each round lightly with liqueur or moistening syrup. Top each mould with cake round, pressing down gently. Refrigerate for 2 – 4 hours.

  11. Rinse the 5 halved glace cherries, and pat dry thoroughly.

  12. In stand mixer bowl, whisk egg whites, lemon juice, and gradually add 2 cups of icing sugar. Whisk on high speed, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed, about 5 minutes. The icing should be the consistency of a thin batter. Add a few more drops of lemon juice, or a tsp of icing sugar, to achieve a thick yet pourable mix.

  13. Remove chilled moulds from fridge, and unmold cakes onto a wire rack set over a sheet pan. Lightly press cherry “nipples” into marzipan. Pour and smooth icing gently over cakes to coat completely, allowing excess to drip onto sheet pan. Feel free to scoop excess icing from the sheet pan and “recycle” it, so all the cakes are well covered.

  14. Allow icing to set in fridge.

About the Show


poster


The world premiere of Titty Cakes was performed for sold-out audiences in Peterborough, Ontario from October 19—23, 2022.

To support The Theatre On King (TTOK), the independent black box theatre where Titty Cakes was born, you can DONATE HERE.

The Creative Team

Sarah McNeilly
Writer/Performer

Sarah McNeilly is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works on the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg in Nogojiwanong; renamed Peterborough, Ontario by European settlers. Primarily an actor and a writer, Sarah has created and performed original works for numerous festivals and venues spanning a range of disciplines including dance/physical theatre, clown, music, poetry, stand up/sketch comedy, and theatre. She has studied dance, improv, scene study, butoh, clown, and commedia dell’arte with a wide range of mentors and teachers. Sarah is highly attuned to processes. A Master’s candidate in the Theory, Culture, Politics program at Trent University, Sarah blurs the lines between theory and practice, between the arts and theoretical cultural analyses, by incorporating a hybrid research-creation form of artistic practice.

Kate Story
Director/Dramaturge

Kate Story is a genderqueer writer and theatre artist originally from Newfoundland, now living and working as an uninvited guest in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough, Ontario. Kate works in multiple genres including devised theatre and dance, and literary and speculative fiction. Kate is artistic director of the Precarious Festivals, and director of Public Energy’s Alternating Currents program, an incubation program for new works by regional artists. Winner of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for theatre, she has also published 6 novels, including her young adult novel Urchin, a 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award finalist. Her short story fiction has made the CBC literary Awards shortlist, appeared in World Fantasy and Aurora Award-winning collections, and has been adapted for international radio drama and virtual reality theatre performances.

Ryan Kerr
Technical Director/Lighting Design/Op

Ryan Kerr is the artistic director of small black box theatre The Theatre on King (TTOK). In the ten years TTOK has been open, the space has become Peterborough’s hub for new and risk-taking performance creation. With Ryan at the helm, TTOK artists have originated over 30 world premieres for cutting-edge theatre and dance productions, 3 month-long interdisciplinary festivals, 5 original series, premieres for award-winning films, productions toured to Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, and across Canada – all while delivering experiential learning in theatre tech, direction, design, and performance to youth and emerging artists. Ryan is a co-founder of Peterborough Dance Works, dedicated to developing and extending regional contemporary dance. He has also been technical director of Public Energy for over a decade. In 2008 Ryan founded Fleshy Thud, a performance production company bringing a number of independent artists together over several projects, including multidisciplinary festivals A Certain Place: the Bernie Martin Festival; and two Precarious: Peterborough ArtsWORK Festivals, where over 50 artists created new art works intertwined with mentorships, panels, workshops, and non-arts community partnerships. In 2019, Ryan was awarded the Peterborough Arts Award for Arts Catalyst.

Shannon McKenzie
Stage Manager/Sound op

Shannon McKenzie is an emerging theatre artist, burlesque performer, and fibre-artist. Since first appearing onstage in an original creation: "Sinking is better than standing still" (Feb 2016) Shannon has been involved in over 25 productions at The Theatre on King, Peterborough Theatre Guild, and Public Energy, as an actor, stage manager, lighting and sound technician. Shannon made her directorial debut with "Gum & Goo" by Howard Brenton (March 2019). She has completed two tech operation mentorships with Ryan Kerr (Precarious, 2017; Precarious2: Artswork Festival, 2019). She appeared as a panelist during Precarious2: Artswork festival speaking on "I'm still here: Precarity, Aging, and Life with Art". Shannon continues to develop skills in theatre tech and production and is beginning to find herself in the position of peer mentor to emerging theatre artists and technicians herself.

Andy McNeilly
Composer

Paradoxically a classical percussionist and a seasoned punk-rock drummer, Andy McNeilly quite literally jumps at opportunities to make artistic “departures”. As a speaker of four languages, Andy is a polyglot in every sense of the word not only linguistically, but also artistically. Since 2016, Andy has been based in Bali, Indonesia where he has gained public notoriety as a musician, composer, comedian, actor, ethnomusicologist, linguist and cultural observer. Andy’s compositional style is directly reflexive of personal milieu. In the music of Tittycakes, Andy draws inspiration from genres such as orchestral, musique concrete, electronic music, punk-rock, chance music and Balinese gamelan to revisit his own personal memories of the true events that the story is based on.

Martha Cockshutt
Food Wrangler/Master Baker

Martha Cockshutt is a Peterborough-based artist who has designed and built costumes for over 100 theatre, dance and performance productions in her 20-plus years as a costume designer, and designed sets for many of these works. She was designer-in-residence for 4th Line Theatre for 6 seasons and has also worked with Magic Circus Theatre, Rehearsal in Progress Theatre, and Westben Arts Festival Theatre, amongst others. Martha’s costumes were featured in the 1999 solo exhibition Sartor Resartus: A Retrospective of the Costume Designs of Martha Cockshutt at Artspace. Since 2000 she has become increasingly involved in creating original performance works in collaboration with other artists, working as a designer while expanding her playwrighting, dramaturgical and directorial skills. Recent works include Skirting the Edge: Women and Mental Health with Mysterious Entity Theatre, and A Nine Days’ Wonder with the Peterborough Thespian Society.

Michael Morritt
Video Director/Editor (Cooking show)

Michael Morritt is a multi-media content producer specializing in commercial animation and digital film. Since 2003, he has worked collaboratively and independently on productions in Canada, Ireland, the US, and Spain. From 2013 to 2018, he founded and led the animation company Whitebulb, which integrated the work of Canadian visual artists into commercial products for diverse clients. He mentored emerging filmmakers from 2007 to 2017, nurturing the careers of directors and producers currently working in Canada, India, and Ireland. Michael's achievements include winning the Best Experimental Film award at the New York State Film Festival for his work on the experimental short film "Show" in 2015. His cinematography on the biographical documentary "Shapemaker" in 2017 earned him a nomination for Best Cinematography at the Canada-China International Film Festival. Currently, Michael is involved in the development of various animated projects and an international documentary series and is also in the process of launching a print-based educational project. He had the pleasure of collaborating with an incredible team in producing, filming, and editing the Titty Cakes cooking show.

Eryn Lidster
Video Director/Editor (Theatrical Performance)

Eryn Lidster is a producer and technical designer and a proud member of Peterborough's artistic community. Since first operating tech for a production in 2015, Lidster has been involved in the production of over 30 theatrical projects. Her original works, Invisible and Rejoinder, premiered at Peterborough's Precarious and Precarious2 ArtsWORK Festivals in 2016 and 2019 respectively; Lidster developed Rejoinder as a participant of Theatre Ontario's Professional Theatre Training Program. Lidster's work focuses on originating performance from a technical perspective within a collaborative process. She recently graduated from Trent University, receiving an Honors BA in Cultural Studies with a Specialization in Image, Sound and Performance. In pursuit of this degree Lidster has expanded her artistic practice to new media, including work in experimental film for which she was twice awarded Trent University's Gregory R. Frith Memorial Prize and shortlisted for acceptance into the Toronto International Film Festival's Wavelengths Program in 2018.

Creative Team:

Andy Carroll — Photographer
Brad Brackenridge — Puppetry Consultant
Paul Oldham — Set Construction
Bryan McKeller — Recipe Tester
Warren Ely (Naked Chocolate) — Sacramental Chocolate
Smokii Sumac - Cultural Consultant
Hilary Wear - Consultant, Outside Eye
Charlie Petch – Consultant, Outside Eye
Lisa Dixon - Consultant

Special Thanks to:

Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre (KASAC), My Left Breast, Black Honey Bakery, Do More Stuff, Andrea Barrett, Nathan McNeilly, Spencer Allen, and Lynne Lidster!

Trigger Warnings

Titty Cakes deals with difficult themes that can cause distress or trigger challenging emotions for some viewers. During the world premiere of Titty Cakes, Active Listeners were on hand to support audiences during each performance. For the digital viewing, in lieu of active listeners, please make use of these resources to access these supports, which are immediately available to you.

You are not alone.

Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre: 1-866-298-7778
Link: http://kawarthasexualassaultcentre.com

National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
Link: https://www.rainn.org/resources

Talk Suicide Canada: 1-833-456-4566
Link: https://talksuicide.ca/community-resources

Canadian Cancer Society: 1-888-939-3333
Link: https://cancer.ca/en/living-with-cancer/how-we-can-help/talk-to-an-information-specialist

* There are a few instances throughout the performance that some viewers may find visually triggering. In these instances, the imagery may not match the dialogue. See the full performance content guide HERE.

  • Coarse Language
  • Cancer
  • Sexual Assault
  • Rape
  • Stalking and harassment
  • Self-harm
  • Suicide
  • Substance abuse
  • Addiction
  • Nihilism
  • Asceticism
  • Religion
  • Sexism and Misogyny
  • Violence
  • Mental Illness
  • Amputation
  • Graphic medical descriptions
  • Miscarriage
  • Abortion
  • Incels
  • Toxic Positivity
  • Death and dying
  • Mental illness and ableism
  • Partial Nudity
  • Visible Scarring
  • Torture
  • Online Defrauding, Theft
This production gratefully acknowledges the support of the following organisations:


© Sarah McNeilly 2023