Replica Door Productions brings The Man from Earth to Windsor
For Deves Matwawana, The Man from Earth did not start as a theatre project.
Instead it started in perhaps the best way to discover a cult sci-fi story: late at night, stumbling across a strange little movie that grabs hold and refuses to let go.
The 2007 film The Man from Earth has almost no action, almost no budget, and takes place almost entirely in one room. The premise is deceptively simple. A university professor gathers a group of colleagues together and calmly tells them he is actually 14,000 years old.
What follows is not spectacle-heavy science fiction, but conversation. Argument. History. Religion. Philosophy. A room full of intelligent people trying to determine whether the impossible story they’ve been told could actually be true.
A table read with the cast | Photo courtesy Deves Matwawana
“It felt like some of my favorite Star Trek episodes,” said Matwawana. “Conversational sci-fi.”
Now, from June 5 through June 14, alongside wife and producer Keats Conlon, Matwawana is directing the stage adaptation of The Man from Earth at Bloomsbury House’s Temple Ballroom. This is the first in what they hope to be a series of film and stage projects under their new production company, Replica Door Productions.
For Matwawana, the appeal of the story was immediate precisely because it avoids the usual tricks associated with science fiction. “There’s no big effects. No giant set pieces,” he said. “It’s really just people talking through these ideas.”
That emphasis on dialogue is part of what convinced him the material belonged on stage, and he found himself already brainstorming what that could look like as he watched the film. “I thought this would actually work better as a play,” he said. “So I looked it up and found out it had already been adapted.”
The project slowly came together since Matwawana’s initial viewing of the movie last fall. After he and Conlon recognized the potential, Matwawana set about assembling the cast and determining if the production could realistically happen.
The first major milestone was securing lead actor Grant Jonsson. “He was the first person I cast,” Matwawana said. “I couldn’t have done the show if he wasn’t interested.” The lead role of Professor John Oldman required someone who could anchor the entire production through warmth and presence rather than theatrical flash.
“You need someone the audience would genuinely miss if he left,” Matwawana said. “Grant’s a big sweet guy with a heart of gold, and that comes through in the performance.”
That character-driven approach extends throughout the production. Much of the show’s tension lives in long conversations, emotional reactions, and philosophical clashes between the characters rather than action. And for Matwawana, that is exactly the appeal.
“I have so many friends in theatre that are incredible performers,” he said. “I just wanted to see them go. This show gives actors the opportunity to absolutely devour dialogue like this.”
His enthusiasm for science fiction clearly runs deep beyond this production. During our conversation, discussion of The Man from Earth drifted into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, his love of thoughtful sci-fi, and the appeal of strong, uncompromising characters..
One such character he pointed to was the villainous Gul Dukat. “There’s so much fiction now where the villain is misunderstood,” he said of the series’ primary antagonist. “There’s something appealing about a character who’s clearly unlikeable and never compromises.”
That same interest in complicated ideas and strong characters is part of what draws him to The Man from Earth. Like classic speculative fiction at its best, the story uses an impossible premise to explore very human concerns: belief, mortality, history, religion, and what it actually means to be a person moving through time.
The production also marks something of a personal return for Matwawana.
Before moving to Windsor from eastern Canada in 2023, he studied screen arts at Nova Scotia Community College and originally hoped to pursue directing professionally. Over time, music became a larger focus. His band, Casual Cries for Help, released an album in 2024, though balancing Windsor life with touring and promotion back east became increasingly difficult.
“Directing was the thing I wanted to do,” he said. “Film school beat me down a little, so I fell out of film and into music. But I love directing.”
Now, The Man from Earth has become a way to reconnect with that part of himself. “I’m doing this to see if I can still do it,” he said.
Part of what made the production possible was the support structure at Bloomsbury House. Matwawana said the venue offered a rare opportunity for younger directors to pitch work directly and receive real production support instead of years of gatekeeping.
“With some places, there’s a wall for people who want to direct,” he said.
Bloomsbury owners Martin Ouellette and Carly Morrison-Hart intentionally structure productions to lower that barrier. Directors can pitch shows directly, with Bloomsbury helping provide technical support, staging, lighting, and venue resources while splitting ticket revenue evenly with productions.
“We treat it as professional theatre and we treat the people who come in as professionals,” Morrison-Hart said. “Our role is to help fill in the gaps they’re missing,” added Ouellette, speaking of the support function offered by Bloomsbury House. “One of my biggest drivers is to give these performers something I didn’t have when I was that age.”
For Matwawana, that openness helped make the leap from “interesting idea” to fully realized production feel achievable. And for a show built around the idea of someone finally being believed after thousands of years, that feels oddly fitting.
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The Man from Earth runs at the Temple Ballroom, 986 Ouellette Avenue in Windsor, from June 5th through June 14th. For tickets visit https://bloomsbury-house-stage-productions.square.site/
