Truth telling is at the core of the SHIFT Festival’s tenth anniversary, according to artistic director Coco Roberge. The annual one-act play festival celebrates its first decade producing original works, which kicked off with Walls, a lobby installation by the Troika Collective, based on the book “Walls: Travels Along the Barricades” by Marcello Di Cintio.

The one-act plays, showing at the Firehall Arts Centre, include Unveiled, a collaborative project created by Fay Nass and devised in English/Farsi with an all-female, Iranian-Canadian ensemble and Pride, written and performed by veteran Vancouver actor Allan Morgan.

Saturday afternoon shows a reading of Titillations, a provocative, feminist, and body-positive exploration of all facets of the female breast by playwright Yvette Dudley-Neuman.

“Titillations, to me, is basically a show about boobs, about the power of the female breast and the iconic status that it holds in pop culture media – and yet it is still hidden all the time and under-discussed. Underwire, underdiscussed,” artistic director Coco Roberge reveals to Loose Lips.

The reading reveals a range of female experiences not unlike the stories heard in live theatre productions such as the Vagina Monologues.

“In the Canadian theatre canon, it’s very rare to find a breastfeeding woman, a breast cancer survivor, or anyone really who has anything less than a perfect pair,” she says, “so I really want to add to that canon. I’m really interested in empowering female voices on stage.”

The reading of Titillations takes place Saturday, June 3 at 3 p.m. and will be followed by a reception with snacks and a raffle featuring LUSH Cosmetics, and other prizes. Staged Reading tickets are $7.

All tickets are available online at http://www.shifttheatre.ca/