3 Female Actors
Nicole wants to take her mom, Debbie, someplace nice to get her mind off of things. Debbie isn’t interested in Nicole’s idea of ‘nice’. Angie might just help them both find the thing that they are looking for. Exit Here is a field trip to a place they’ve never been together before.
Premiere: Toronto March 28 – April 6 2025 as part of Women At Play(s) 7 Festival.
9 Actors – 4 women, 4 men, 1 any gender/non-binary. Diverse casting encouraged.
Two Acts
Running time: 100 minutes
On December 2, 1919, theatre magnate Ambrose Small sold all of his theatre holdings for a record sum. That very day, he disappeared. In his wake, Ambrose left behind his enormous fortune, a jealous wife, a disgruntled employee, gambling buddies, a mistress, and a ghostly mystery waiting to be solved. Grand Ghosts is a ghostly, vaudeville-inspired mystery about the true-life disappearance of Ontario theatre tycoon Ambrose Small that explores entitlement – what people will do to get what they think they deserve.
World Premiere at The Grand London October 2022 directed by Jillian Keiley. Grand Ghosts was developed through the Compass New Play Development Program at The Grand.
Grand Ghosts is an achievement that won’t soon be forgotten…This show grabs the audience from the opening moment and the actors never let go until the final curtain delivering one delicious moment after another to tell the story leading up to Small’s disappearance in the first act with the second act devoted to solving the mystery…Grand Ghosts is an artistic achievement, one that should be shared with Canadian audiences well beyond the ghostly haunts of The Grand Theatre.
London Free Press
Grand Ghosts is the perfect feel-good show for the spooky season and a true celebration of theatre.
The GAZETTE
During Fringe 2019, a world premiere play, The Trophy Hunt, will be performed as a “rolling world premiere at Fringe festivals across Canada. Based on the ‘rolling world premiere’ concept used by the National New Play Network in the U.S., separate teams of professional artists will interpret and present the same text in different ways – some will be site-specific, some conventional, some even outside! An ambitious project led by amazing Canadian artists from across the country. More details, including artistic teams and participating cities, to come.
Go on a hunt to stalk something wild and dangerous -you just might find it.
Parker has waited his whole life for this trip. Jan follows this same path and makes this same trip every day, there is still some enjoyment in nature. Soraya wishes they’d all leave her alone on her beach vacation.
The Trophy Hunt is an exploration of who eats who in our canned hunt of a world where everything is observed, everything a zoo.
http://www.facebook.com/TrophyHuntFringe
@TrophyHuntFringe #TrophyHuntFringe
6 Actors: 4 women (20 – 60s), 2 men (40-60s)
Two Acts
Running time: 120 minutes
Alexander Graham Bell connected people around the world by inventing the telephone. But it was of little use to his wife, Mabel, who was deaf. Written from Mabel’s point of view, the story begins in Nova Scotia as Mabel reflects back on her life with Bell. Together they inspired and challenged each other to become strong, original forces for good. A beautiful (and true) love story about how we communicate.
Silence had me in tears the first time I read it. Playwright Trina Davies uses a powerful staging device “ silence” in a way that will leave you breathless. How lucky we are to see it first. DENNIS GARNHUM, Artistic Director, The Grand
World Premiere January 2018 – Directed by Peter Hinton at The Grand Theatre, London, ON; Mainstage National Arts Centre, Ottawa, October 2018
National Arts Centre Podcast (video and/or audio) about Silence can be found here.Â
“Silence is a welcome addition to the catalogue of Canadian theatre…a lovely portrait of a unique relationship and a delightfully entertaining, interesting and challenging show I expect to see staged across this country and beyond” London Free Press
“A flawless interpretation of Mabel’s mind…You are within it, listening, watching, and feeling the vibrations of sound waves around you.” Stratford Festival Reviews
“While Londoners are lucky to see it first, Silence is such a beautiful, thoughtful play that one hopes it will go on to further productions across the country and beyond.” Stage Door
“If one of the intents of theatre, or of any art for that matter, is to give us entry into worlds we’d otherwise never inhabit, Silence: Mabel and Alexander Graham Bell succeeds splendidly.” artsfile. Ottawa
Silence is the inaugural production of the COMPASS New Play Development Program. Originally commissioned and developed through FUSE: The Enbridge New Play Development Program at Theatre Calgary.
7 Actors: 4 women (20 – 60s), 3 men (40-60s)
One Act
Running time: 110 minutes
A charismatic Leader raises goats that he names after foreign dignitaries as he hides from an international war crimes tribunal. He is especially fond of a nanny goat he calls “Madeleine Albright”.
Beginning in an apartment in Bosnia and ending in a suburban kitchen in North America, The Bone Bridge spirals in and around the very personal lives of individuals working to rebuild their lives after conflict. As the Leader is found in hiding and goes on trial for human rights abuses, the delicate balance that has been struck is about to be blown wide open. The Bone Bridge is an exploration of civil conflict, nationalism and the culpability of leadership – when home and country are lost, and neighbour has turned on neighbour, is it humanly possible to recover?
“Reconciliation requires four things: truth, justice, mercy and peace. These four elements often contradict each other. For example, justice often involves punishment and violence, which is the opposite of mercy. Or, speaking the truth creates more conflict, which is the opposite of peace. However, without all four elements, reconciliation cannot exist.”
John Paul Lederach
The Bone Bridge’s development was supported by the BC Arts Council. The play was developed through the Citadel Theatre’s Playwrights Forum, and workshopped at Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco. The play has received readings supported by Amnesty International, and has had well-received public readings at the University of Calgary Consortium for Peace Studies, Stanford University and Custom Made Theatre (San Francisco).
Finalist for the Herman Voaden Prize
Finalist for the Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Competition (NYC)Â
Finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival (San Francisco)
Winner of the  National UpRising Prize in Canada for plays concerning social justice
Winner of the Woodward International Playwriting Prize in the U.S.Â
Commissioned by The Citadel Theatre, The Hunt premiered at the Encounters Festival in July 2016
Cast: 1 man
5-10 minutes running time
Parker hates zoos. He’s on the hunt for something wild and dangerous…and he just might find it.
Parker
My whole life I’ve wanted to touch a lion. The fur is warm and the mane feels just like you think it does. You can feel the blood leaving, the heat leaving the body and you’ve accomplished something that nobody can ever take back. A lion.
Skinned him and took his head. No good if you don’t have proof.
Beat
Charlie. (beat) That’s his fucking name.
Fucking lion is named “Charlie”.
Based on current events, such as:
Commissioned by Watermark Theatre and the Canada 300 project, Downsizing will tour to 21 cities across Canada in 2015.
Cast: 1 woman, 1 man
Linda is pleased that they have chosen to downsize and move into a more compressed urban lifestyle. That is, until the new neighbour moves in. John misses his stuff and his ride-on lawn mower. While Linda puts together her potential court case outlining the litany of annoyances the foreign neighbour has subjected her to, John tries to ignore the whole thing. He is finally drawn in when the neighbour approaches the door, leaving them a mysterious package.
 As we live physically closer but with greater individual and cultural differences, how can we find the space that we need to live together?
Based on current events, such as:
A Feud Between Residents at this BC Seniors Condo is so Bizarre Even a Judge had a Hard Time Believing it was Real. http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/05/27/a-feud-between-residents-at-this-b-c-seniors-condo-is-so-bizarre-even-a-judge-had-a-hard-time-believing-it-was-real/
Condo Owners Ordered to Sell Unit after Parking Spot Dispute that Wouldn’t End http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/condo-owners-ordered-to-sell-unit-after-parking-spot-dispute-that-wouldnt-end/article18660988/
Condo owner wins counter-claim judgment against obnoxious next door neighbour who complained about noise from piano playing http://blog.myleakycondo.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=5289&blogId=1060
The Upside to Downsizing http://www.vancouversun.com/business/upside+downsizing/7816141/story.html
Starting the in-depth research and scheming on this brand new play – Canadian-born vaudeville star Eva Tanguay was a complete original. The top-paid and top-billed star in New York City of her time, she was known as the “girl who made vaudeville famous”. She was most famous for her song “I Don’t Care” that thumbed its nose at the propriety of the day and at any person who would deny her the spotlight. Other notable persons of the time were compared to her, including Roosevelt who was known as the “Eva Tanguay of politics”. The I Don’t Care Girl follows Eva’s deliberate and calculated rise to fame. She encounters notable persons during her rise, including the songstress Sophie Tucker who she considers a rival. As the times change and Eva fails to transfer her talents to the film industry, she finds herself alone and ill on the West Coast.
The I Don’t Care Girl will use vaudeville-era spectacle to explore the consequences of pursuing celebrity, fame and “legacy”. It will follow an extraordinary relationship that begins in a system that requires women to compete against each other, but that ends by celebrating female friendship. As it turns out, the “I Don’t Care Girl” actually cares the most – about being loved for her work and for herself.
3 Actors: 2 women (20s, 30s/40s), 1 man (40s)
Runs as Two Act
Running time: 100 minutes
The perfect man. The perfect romance. Karin Maynard is on vacation when she meets the handsome and attentive Markus Richter. But back home in Cold War Germany, things are not so simple. If emotion can be manufactured, how do you ever really know if you are loved?
Based on a real program in East Germany in which West German secretaries were targeted and psychologically profiled to determine their ‘perfect man’. The Stasi identified the man who looked right, who could be coached, and that man was sent to develop a long-term relationship with the target.
Half romantic comedy and half spy-thriller, The Romeo Initiative is a journey into the heart that leaves audiences gasping.
“Play has a seductive hook, digging into one of the hotter chapters in Cold War Germany. August Strindberg wrote that ‘Love between a man and woman is war’, but Davies suggests it is actually a Cold War full of anxiety, paranoia and double agents. One of the play’s more provocative questions is: Can a man both love a woman and betray her? Goutsis’ humane performance suggests the answer is yes – but that doesn’t stop Davies from dishing him out his just desserts too.”
Globe and Mail
“Romeo Initiative Stole My Heart – The choreography, the nuances of the writing, the set changes, the lighting, the physical balance of the two acts were fantastic! None of these details can communicate how powerfully this piece affected me! The Romeo Initiative will appeal to anyone who likes to think as well as feel at the theatre. It’s a stimulating piece.” Plank Magazine
“So intrigued was I at the end of Act 1 of The Romeo Initiative, I was almost vibrating! I find the way playwright Davies structures the play really invigorating. It speaks to how differently we view the same sequence of events and how being in love can completely cloud our thinking. And while there’s nothing new there, splitting a play like that into its two halves is risky and bold.” Jo Ledingham, theatre critic for The Vancouver Courier and On The Scene
“The Romeo Initiative is for people who like love stories. This one happens to be humourous and a little dark. But at its base the story revolves around love and how it can live in the strangest of situations. If you like a good love story with a dark underbelly, go see The Romeo Initiative” Vancouver Vantage
“I’m not sure the Enbridge PlayRites Festival could have chosen a better play for their 25th anniversary and their 100th premiere.”
Avenue Magazine
“Play delivers a swift kick in the heart.”
Calgary Herald
“Romantic spy thriller proves to be compelling, heartbreaking theatre.”
PodSask
Winner of the 2008 National Enbridge Award for Established Artist
Finalist for the 2012 Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama
4 Actors: 3 Female (teens/20s, 30s, 50s), 1 Male (20s)
Two Act
Running Time: 95 Minutes
1917. The largest man-made explosion prior to Hiroshima. Two thousand dead, hundreds injured and blinded, and many more homeless.
Shatter explores the little-known details of the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Anna MacLean is a teenager, thrilled with her new diary, ripe with the promise of youth, and flush with excitement at all of the handsome soldiers in the streets of Halifax.
Though Anna’s mother and her best friend, Elsie Schultz, talk of the war, Anna can only think about whether the young man at the door enforcing the blackout order thought she was pretty. The next morning the world collapses. As a community tries to find someone to blame, four characters search through the rubble for something true. Lyrical and shockingly relevant to our post 9/11 world, Shatter is an examination of the cycles of fear.
Shatter is published by Playwrights Canada Press and is available for purchase by clicking here
“intense, moving, and utterly devastating… you will not leave Shatter without being transformed” Times Square Chronicles
“Shatter is a thoroughly engrossing, haunting performance, and one that you will be unable to forget or cast aside for some time to come”.
Vue Magazine
“The atmosphere of suspicion and rage resonates with post-911 NYC. This is a taut, exciting and moving production of a smart, informative play” Hi! Drama Theatre Reviews (MNN, Public Access Television, Manhattan)
“An intense, moving, thought-provoking, very human drama.”
Halifax Herald
“Haunting and riveting, a must see production !!”
Amherst Citizen
“Shatter unfolds close to the heart, splintering it into a million pieces as it follows the prejudiced upshot of the 1917 Halifax explosion…[the production is] a living, breathing gem”
St Albert Gazette
“The business of the play is the rage that the townspeople direct at their German-born neighbors, and, more specifically, at Elsie. At its most terrifying, the rage drives people “Canadians!” to a wholesale destruction of the homes owned by German-born townspeople…The aftermath of the Halifax explosion shows that even the gentlest and most well-mannered of people are capable of irrational destructiveness if they are subjected to sufficient pain.” DC Theatre Scene.
Shatter @ Urban Stages NYC
Winner of the 24 hr Playwriting Competition ATP
Short List for International Prism Residency Prize 2003
Short List for New Works of Merit 13th Street Repertory Theatre NYC 2004
Short List for International Dramatic Literature Prize Media Arts Literature and Sound San Francisco
Shatter was featured at the Women Playwrights International (WPI) Conference in Mumbai India in 2009
