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, 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

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