Grand Ghosts

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

Silence: Mabel and Alexander Graham Bell

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. 

Silence is now available for purchase through Playwrights Canada Press by clicking here.

 

“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.

 

The Bone Bridge

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) 

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. 

 

The Romeo Initiative

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.


“Jamie Konchak and Kira Bradley in The Romeo Initiative, ATP 2011, photo: Trudi Lee

REVIEWS

Christian Goutsis
Christian Goutsis, ATP 2011,
Photo: Trudi Lee

“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

Shatter

 

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

REVIEWS

“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

Waxworks

8 Actors: 4 Female, 4 Male
Two Act
Running Time: 2 hours

1789. The edge of the French Revolution, and a young Madame Tussaud (Marie Grosholz) is recalled from her post at the Palace of Versailles back to Dr. Curtius’ Wax Salon in the heart of Paris.

Reunited with her mother and her mentor, she is introduced to the most influential persons in Paris, including Maximilien Robespierre, who takes a particular interest in her art. As the revolution descends into shadow, Marie is forced to confront the remains of those she has befriended – whose waxen images must be set with signs that identify them as “patriots” or “enemies”.

Waxworks is an exploration of the tales we are told, the heroes and villains we create — and the life of an extraordinary artist who developed the first world-wide brand in entertainment history.

 

Marie Grosholtz 1778

Marie enters in her black dress and bonnet.

Marie: Once you have the beginning, you decide how to finish her. You choose the perfect fabric and have it sewn into the right length and shape. Position her limbs as if she were living. Pull out the mirrors and the candles and set everything up just right. You light her. Cast shadows. Evoke pride and confidence, horror and pity. Then the time comes to present it all.

And, just in case they miss the point, you set signs up along the way.

Marie removes her black dress and bonnet.

 

 

 

Winner of the APN Award for Best New Play  2007

 

Paige Peterkin, Williams College Production, Photo Credit: David Dashiell

Paige Peterkin, Williams College Production, Photo Credit: David Dashiell

Paige Peterkin, Harriet Weldon, Liam Ouweleen, Sofia Smith, Danielle D'Oliveria, Yasmin Ruvalcaba, Photo Credit: David Dashiell

Paige Peterkin, Harriet Weldon, Liam Ouweleen, Sofia Smith, Danielle D’Oliveria, Yasmin Ruvalcaba, Photo Credit: David Dashiell

Paige Peterkin, Yasmin Ruvalcaba, Danielle D'Oliveria, Williams College, Photo Credit: David Dashiell

Paige Peterkin, Yasmin Ruvalcaba, Danielle D’Oliveria, Williams College, Photo Credit: David Dashiell

 

West of the 3rd Meridian

2 Actors: 1 Female (plays multiple ages), 1 Male (plays multiple ages)
One Act
Running Time: 95 Minutes

meridian: n. & a. circle passing through celestial poles and zenith of any place on earth’s surface; corresponding line on a map; point at which sun or star attains highest altitude; prime, full splendour

Meridian is a prairie ghost story. It is a two-actor play set in a farmhouse on the edge of the prairie, which is also the central character of the story. Moments keep replaying in the space, the audience taken on a backwards progression in time. The play tackles the ideas of expectation, loss and haunting. West of the third meridian is a physical location. Rural sites are identified with a series of locators, one of which is the site’s relation to the meridians. The meridian is also the pinnacle, the best, the highest point of a star. This play is populated with characters that haunt a location full of raised and lowered expectations and who find softness in falling just a bit short.

REVIEWS

“A strong piece of work”
See Magazine

“Highly Recommended!”
CBC Radio One

“Proves that no matter whether Michael Jackson or Al Jolson is playing the teen hits of your day, the human heart is the same old organ.”
Edmonton Journal

Multi User Dungeon

10 Actors: 5 Female (20s), 5 Male (20s)
Two Act
Running Time: 95 Minutes

Multi User Dungeon* centers around Kylie, a young woman who is bored with her job, bored with her life, and bored with the people in it. Looking for an escape, she stumbles onto a MUD on the internet. Here she finds drama, excitement, and the “real” connection that she feels that she is missing in her real life.

*A MUD (Multi User Dungeon or Multi User Domain) is a text-based Dungeons and Dragons type of real-time role-playing game available on the internet . MUDs are played simultaneously by people all over the world.

Winner of the APN Discovery Award 2000