WELCOME TO THE GIFT-A-PLAY WISH LIST DETAILS PAGE!
Below are the titles that we’d love to add to the Theatre Alberta Library this year. Have a look, and if you see something you’d like to help us purchase head over to our Canada Helps donation page, choose the item from the list, and purchase your ticket!
CoyWolf
Colin Wolf ($19)
- Donated
Isidor, a half-Coyote, half-Wolf CoyWolf, has always struggled to find his place as a half-breed. After the untimely death of his mother, he leaves his community to roam across prairies, forests, and mountains, sharing stories in his search for kinship and belonging. But as Sharp-Tooths are increasingly policed, tagged, or killed to make way for insatiable human expansion, Isidor and his pack are forced to make impossible decisions. Do they retreat to better their chances of survival, or risk everything by joining a resistance of rogue animals to protect what’s left of their homeland?
In this gripping drama, Colin Wolf weaves a powerful allegory through the lives of animals, paralleling the displacement of Métis people and the enduring struggle for Indigenous land rights on Turtle Island. CoyWolf is a hopepunk thriller and a roadmap for young revolutionaries navigating the realities of resistance, doing your best, and learning the wisdom of those who have walked the path before.
The Hooves Belonged to the Deer
Makram Ayache ($21)
- Donated
When the impressionable young Izzy immigrates with his Arab family to rural Alberta, he becomes the salvation pet project for Pastor Isaac, a local Christian youth leader eager to mould him. Torn between his sexual desires for his friend Will and Isaac’s persuasive indoctrination, Izzy must find a way to reconcile his internalized shame and deep spiritual faith before it consumes him. Meanwhile, in a surreal reimagining of Eden/A’den, Aadam and Hawa—the first couple of the Qur’an—find their relationship turned upside down when Aadam is tempted by the proverbial white-skinned man, Steve, from the north.
With the gravitas of a Greek tragedy, The Hooves Belonged to the Deer is a bold and blistering indictment of white Christian imperialism. Makram Ayache’s daring play confronts the painful intersections of homophobia, Islamophobia, and colonialism, refusing to offer easy resolutions. Erotically charged and panoramic in scope, this cautionary tale illuminates the lingering scars of religious trauma while offering a profound reckoning and prayer for rebirth
Mermaid Legs
Beth Graham ($19)
- Donated
Sisters Billie, Ava, and Scarlet start a new tradition of family dinners every second Sunday, rain or shine. But when Billie doesn’t show up one night, her sisters have every reason to worry. With a history of self-harm and regularly being on and off her medication, they’ve become all too familiar with Billie’s unpredictable behaviour. Now that Billie has disappeared—leaving behind her disastrous apartment, her phone, and a mysterious message—a frantic chase ensues, pushing their unshakable bond to its limits.
From the celebrated author of The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble and co-author of The Drowning Girls, Beth Graham’s Mermaid Legs tells the story of a precarious life fluctuating between calm and chaos, and those on the sidelines desperately trying to catch up. A deep dive into the stigmas, challenges, and mysteries of mental illness, this compassionate family saga illuminates the beauty of neurodiversity and the unyielding strength of sisterhood.
Winner, Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award for Outstanding New Play 2024
The Art of War
Yvette Nolan ($19)
- Donated
Nick wears a soldier’s uniform but wields only a paintbrush. As an embedded Canadian artist during the Second World War, he is tasked with an impossible mission: to capture the chaos and carnage of battle on canvas. With soldiers, refugees, and showgirls as muses, Nick embarks on a surreal odyssey of self-discovery to understand the purpose and power of his art. What he witnesses—and what he paints—will change him forever and help shape the vision of a young nation.
In The Art of War, Yvette Nolan offers a poignant meditation on the role of artists in times of war and peace. Finding humour and insight in the challenges of expressing the inexpressible, it is an exaltation of those who steadfastly seek truth amidst great turmoil.
Ransacking Troy
Erin Shields ($19)
- Donated
After nearly a decade of the Trojan War, the women of Greece are growing restless. Led by the indomitable Penelope and the fierce Clytemnestra, a band of Grecian women defy the odds and bravely set sail for the shores of Troy, determined to end the conflict themselves. The journey is fraught with danger—bloodthirsty warriors, mythical beasts, and the capricious will of the gods. But these women are no mere bystanders in the tales of men. Get ready to embark on the greatest adventure that Homer and Virgil never told.
A radical retelling of the ancient Greco-Roman epics, Ransacking Troy is a bold and brilliant reimagining of the most famous war story of all time, where women take centre stage as the rightful heroes. In her signature revisionist style, award-winning playwright Erin Shields brings a refreshing feminist twist to this thrilling odyssey, confronting the habitual violence and disregard for women’s lives that persist during times of war. A mythical tale for modern times, Ransacking Troy envisions what happens when women band together to build a better world.
Homecoming
Kamila Sediego ($19)
- Donated
“Wasn’t I enough to cross an ocean?”
Three generations of Filipina women converge across time and continents as they attempt to bridge the emotional and physical distances that have kept them apart. Sisters Tess and Vicky are inseparable as children, climbing mango trees and sharing dreams in their small Philippine barangay. But when Tess leaves for Canada, their world fractures, leaving Vicky to shoulder the weight of familial responsibilities. More than thirty years later, a funeral brings Vicky to Vancouver to reunite with Tess and her daughter, Ana. Together, the women grapple with the unspoken tensions of the past, hoping to reconcile—but is it too late?
Weaving seamlessly between dreams and memories, Kamila Sediego’s Homecoming tenderly navigates the ripple effects of immigration on those who leave, those who stay, and the generations that follow. A rich tapestry of culture, language, humour, and food, this soaring and heartbreaking drama reminds us that even across great distances, some bonds can never be broken.
As Above
Camilla Quintana ($19)
- Donated
Jo, a sixtysomething recovering alcoholic, struggles to piece together a life shattered by addiction. Once a prominent botanical researcher, she now lectures at the local horticultural centre and begins to open her guarded heart to Rick, a fellow sober soul with his own complicated past. But Jo’s fragile progress is disrupted when a mysterious phone call from her estranged daughter forces the past to resurface. As Jo embarks on a desperate journey to connect, the intricate, unseen communication between trees mirrors her own quest for healing and reconciliation.
Christine Quintana’s As Above is a profoundly moving exploration of redemption, renewal, and the beauty of finding connection in unexpected places. Set amongst the majestic cedar forests of Victoria, BC, this tender and spiritual play is a meditation on the deep roots that connect us to each other and the natural world.
Red Like Fruit
Hanna Moscovitch ($19)
- Donated
Meet Lauren, a journalist in the midst of covering a high-profile domestic violence case while a growing sense of unease pervades her thoughts. Now meet Luke, whom Lauren has asked to tell her story to the audience. Through Luke’s voice, Lauren reflects on buried memories of sexual experiences from her adolescence. Are these experiences just a part of being a woman, or are they trauma? And does Luke have the authority to help her understand her own life?
From the Governor General’s Literary Award–winning playwright of Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, Hannah Moscovitch is at the height of her dramatic powers in this masterful provocation about the role men’s voices play in women’s stories. Through an ingenious metatheatrical device, Red Like Fruit courageously interrogates the messy contradictions and complexities of complicity, consent, power, and truth in the post #MeToo era.
Nominated, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2024
Winner, Scotsman Fringe First Award 2025
Chasing Champions: The Sam Langford Story
Jacob Sampson ($19)
- Donated
Sam Langford was a fighter his whole life—inside and outside of the ring. Born in the small town of Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia, he rose from humble beginnings to become one of the greatest boxers of all time to never hold a world title—not by a lack of drive or talent but from the harsh realities of systemic racism and the notorious “colour line” that segregated Black athletes during the early twentieth century. Denied the opportunities he deserved, Sam’s incredible true story is defined by a relentless pursuit of glory, justice, and survival—often at great personal cost, not just to himself but to those who loved him.
From the roaring crowds of fight nights to the quiet reckonings of his twilight years, Chasing Champions: The Sam Langford Story is a gripping biographical drama that reveals the man behind the legend, reclaiming his rightful place in history. More than a story about boxing, it’s a celebration of resilience, humanity, and the unbreakable bonds that endure through sacrifice and redemption.
Ain’t No Mo
Jordan E. Cooper ($30)
- Donated
The time is the near future, and African American Airlines Flight 1619 has been chartered to take Black Americans “back to Africa.” Organizing the boarding process is Peaches, a flight agent in drag who is juggling the passengers’ excitement and reluctance, as well as her own. Presented in eight vignettes, Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’ is both a satire and a serious investigation examining the ever-varying facets of the Black American experience: lives affected by violence, class tensions, the prison-industrial complex, and culture vulture
Prince Faggot
Jordan Tannahill ($19)
- Donated
In this metatheatrical tragicomedy, an ensemble of queer and trans performers cast themselves in a thought experiment, imagining the future heir to the British throne as having a life resembling their own. Jordan Tannahill, one of Canada’s most acclaimed playwrights, takes no prisoners in this ferociously audacious what-if, brimming with unbridled sexuality, wit, and imagination. A poppers-fuelled phantasmagoria interwoven with personal stories and ecstatic fantasies, Prince Faggot reckons with how the forces of power, privilege, and colonization play upon queer lives.
Cambodian Rock Band
Lauren Yee ($32)
- Donated
Cambodian Rock Band is an epic play/rock concert that thrusts us into the life of a young woman trying to piece together her family history thirty years after her father fled Cambodia. Featuring actor/musicians who perform a mix of contemporary Dengue Fever hits and classic Cambodian oldies live, Lauren Yee brings to vivid life the Cambodian rock scene of the ’60s and ’70s, a movement cut short by the Khmer Rouge’s brutal attempt to erase the music (and musicians) once and for all. A story about survivors, the resilient bond of family, and the enduring power of music.
Public Obscenities
Shayok Misha Chowdhury ($32)
- Donated
A complex and compelling bilingual play that examines the intersections of queerness and Indian-American identity.
When Indian-American graduate student Choton travels from the U.S. to his family’s home city of Kolkata to film interviews with the local queer community, he relishes acting as the local expert, especially in his role as interpreter between Bangla and English for his filmmaker boyfriend. Soon, though, Choton starts to question not only what he thinks he knows about queerness in India, but what both queerness and his Indian heritage mean for him. When a rediscovered roll of film reveals surprisingly intimate photographs of Choton’s austere grandfather (taken by whom?), Choton’s understanding of his family, both living and dead, starts to unravel. What follows is a mesmerizing examination of intercultural identity, asking audiences to reconsider what we mean when we call a place home.
Nominated, Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2024
Primary Trust
Eboni Booth ($30)
- Donated
Primary Trust is an arresting character study of an isolated man finding the courage to expand his world and begin again.
38-year-old Kenneth lives a comfortable life of routine in suburban New York: after days spent working at a used bookstore, he whiles away his evenings knocking back mai tais with his best friend Burt at the local tiki bar. But when the long-time bookstore owner decides to close up shop for good, Kenneth panics at the prospect of finding a new job—a process that unearths long-suppressed fears. When Kenneth makes a new friend named Corrina, and she begins to ask questions Kenneth isn’t prepared to answer: how many mai tais is too many mai tais? And who—or what—is Burt? Primary Trust is a deeply affecting play about the careful structures we build to contain oceans of feeling and what happens when those structures begin to crumble.
Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Maple and Vine & Other Plays
Jordan Harrison ($41)
- Donated
Known for his ability to turn an unusual premise into something profound and sublime, Jordan Harrison is one of our most inventive and thought-provoking contemporary playwrights. His work grapples with the fleeting nature of time, the fallibility of memory, the volatility of identity, and our often-fraught relationships with technology. This new collection gathers together several of his plays, including the title play, Maple and Vine, which follows a couple who decides to forgo their urban lives in favor of recreating the “simpler” lifestyle of the 1950s, trading cell phones for Tupperware parties in a newfound quest for happiness. This volume also contains the plays The Amateurs, Amazons and Their Men, and Doris to Darlene.
The Beautiful Future is Coming
Flora Wilson Brown ($30)
- Donated
1856. New York. Eunice sits in what will become Central Park, and wonders if her research into CO2 is telling her something is going horribly wrong.
2027. London. Claire falls in love as the heatwave breaks, and the streets begin to flood.
2100. Svalbard. While an 86-day storm rages outside, Ana hears a baby crying in the seed vault.
The world is ending, sure. But what happens in between?
A fast-paced, funny and wildly inventive play, Flora Wilson Brown’s The Beautiful Future is Coming looks at two hundred and fifty years of real and imagined history through the eyes of three couples.
Giant
Mark Rosenblatt ($28)
- Donated
A world-famous children’s author under threat. A battle of wills in the wake of scandal. And a chance to make amends…
It’s the summer of 1983, The Witches is about to hit the shelves and Roald Dahl is making last-minute edits. But the outcry at his recent, explicitly antisemitic article won’t die down. Across a single afternoon at his family home, and rocked by an unexpectedly explosive confrontation, Dahl is forced to choose: make a public apology or risk his name and reputation.
Inspired by real events, Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play Giant offers a nuanced portrait of a fiendishly charismatic icon – and explores with dark humour the difference between considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric.
Winner, Most Promising Playwright, Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2025
Winner, Best New Play, Olivier Awards 2025
Winner, Best New Play, Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2025
Miss Nelson Is Missing!
Joan Cushing and Harry Allard ($10)
- Donated
Miss Nelson’s class is the worst behaved in the whole school. Spitballs flying across the room, paper airplanes sailing every which way and uncontrollable children send the gentle, long-suffering teacher, Miss Nelson, over the edge. But the students of Room 207 are in for a surprise when Miss Nelson turns up missing and is replaced by Viola Swamp, a scary substitute teacher who assigns homework from hell and wields her ruler like a sword! In desperation, the students set out to find their beloved Miss Nelson … but will they ever get her back? Lessons of appreciation and respect.
Nate the Great
Brett Ryback and John Maclay ($10)
- Donated
Nate the Great is a funny, sweet, rollicking good time that celebrates art, friendship, creative thinking, and of course, pancakes.
Nate the Great, the world’s greatest boy detective awakes, hoping that this day will bring a new case. He gets a call from his good friend Annie alerting him that her new painting of her dog Fang is missing! He rushes over to her house to investigate. There he searches for clues and interviews her brother Harry who loves red paint and monsters. He also observes (and possibly tangoes) with Fang.
Having struck out at Annie’s house, Nate deduces that the painting must have been taken by Annie’s cat loving friend Rosamond; as she was the only other person with access to Annie’s masterpiece.
Upon arriving at Rosamond’s house, Nate learns that she has a case to solve as well. One of her four cats, Super Hex, is missing! Nate ultimately realizes that Rosamond could not have stolen the painting. For the first time in his career, he is…stumped. And worse yet, Mom is all out of pancakes.
To solve this case he is going to need to find some pancakes, learn to think new ways, and rely on the help of his friends. By the end he has opened up his mind to new possibilities, found Annie’s painting, found Rosamond’s cat, and maybe even solved the mystery of why music in a minor key makes us sad.
How I Became a Pirate
Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman ($10)
- Donated
Sail off on a fantastic musical excursion when a band of comical pirates lands at North Beach looking for an expert digger to join their crew. Braid Beard and his mates enlist young Jeremy Jacob as they look for the perfect spot to bury their treasure. Jeremy finds that adventuring can be lots of fun, but also learns that love and home are treasures you can’t find on any map! The whole family will love this delightful and swashbuckling musical adventure.
A Beginner’s Guide to Directing Theatre
Robert Marsden ($46)
- Donated
An accessible guide to the theatre directing process of text-based theatre, from the choice of the play through to an encounter with an audience.
Moving from how to choose a play to the opening night, A Beginner’s Guide to Directing Theatre takes the reader, via a step-by-step approach, through various techniques, practitioners, methodologies and exercises that could be applied to text-based theatre.
Through doing so, the reader comes to understand:
– The differences between directing (the approach) and the director (the role), how that crosses over and ways to navigate this
– A range of practices, methodologies and techniques for the differing and diverse styles, genres, playwrights and movements. i.e. the ‘what’ of directing
– How to create inclusive, safe and diverse practices of casting and rehearsal methods
By not providing one single methodology, but introducing readers to various methods, the author garners an understanding of how different plays, genres, styles and movements require their own approaches to reach opening night.
Whilst not concentrating on devised or non-text based theatre, the book makes explicit how devising, experiential and improvisatory techniques can be embraced to inform the types of methodologies a director may embrace whilst approaching text-based work.
From here, readers will be able to know which practitioners and directing methodologies they may wish to employ and will understand where to head next.
Kathakali: Tradition, Innovations, and Transitions in the Dance Drama of Kerala
Sudha Gopalakrishnan ($34)
- Donated
Authored by a leading exponent of the form, this book provides a clear guide to Kathakali, exploring its origin, evolution, and characteristics and the ways it has adapted for a 21st-century audience.
Kathakali is an introduction to this vibrant mode of dance drama, which comes from Kerala in southwest India and combines poetry, music, rhythm, and dance to represent stories of gods, demons, and humans. Originating in the latter part of the 16th century, today Kathakali commands attention and involves practitioners from around the world. Largely drawing its stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, it integrates music, dance, grand makeup, and costume to evoke the epic universe. This book illuminates how Kathakali combines associated literary texts, performative conventions, and practices from local and pan-Indian contexts. The actors use their whole body-deploying complex dance movements, interpretive gestures, and highly developed facial expressions-as a site to depict, elaborate, and interpret action. Encapsulating the world of Kathakali, its performative grammar, and the aesthetic theories that underpin it, this book examines its history as one of continual change.
The book traces the distinctive features of Kathakali, which is sometimes tightly structured with fixed conventions, and sometimes fluid enough to incorporate imaginative flights of fancy. It assesses Kathakali’s cultural legacy and charts how the form has changed over the centuries. It also includes translations of extracts from poems, plays, and performance manuals, as well as interviews with actors and cultural historians.
Dramaturgy in the Making: A User’s Guide for Theatre Practitioners
Katalin Trencsényo ($56)
- Donated
Dramaturgy in the Making maps contemporary dramaturgical practices in various settings of theatre-making and dance to reveal the different ways that dramaturgs work today. It provides a thorough survey of three major areas of practice – institutional dramaturgy, production dramaturgy and dance dramaturgy – with each illustrated through a range of case studies that illuminate methodology and which will assist practitioners in developing their own ‘dramaturgical toolbox’.
In tracing the development of the role of the dramaturg, the author explores the contribution of Lessing, Brecht and Tynan, foundational figures who shaped the practice. She excavates the historical and theoretical contexts for each strand of the work, uniquely offering a history of dance dramaturgy and its associated theories.
Based on extensive research, the volume features material from the author’s interviews with fifty eminent professionals from Europe and North America, including: Robert Blacker, Jack Bradley, DD Kugler, Ruth Little and Hildegard De Vuyst. Through these, a detailed and precise insight is provided into dramaturgical processes at organisations such as the Akram Khan Company, les ballets C de la B (Gent), the National Theatre and the Royal Court (London), the Schaubühne (Berlin) and The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab (Utah), among others.
Dramaturgy in the Making will prove indispensable to anyone working in theatre or wanting to better understand the dramaturgical processes in performance-making today.
The Leap
Gavin Kostick ($24)
- Donated
It was an accident!
When Wendy jumps off the family piano and shatters her mam’s favourite glass table, she doesn’t just break the glass, she cracks open a whole other world. With the shards packed into her backpack and emotions bubbling inside her, Wendy follows her dad through a trapdoor and into another world.
The Leap takes us to a place where ancient wrongs may be righted, new worlds are created and a young girl’s sad heart may be cured. It might be possible to piece together what’s been broken. But only if she chooses.
The Lady from the Sea
Simon Stone ($24)
- Donated
You can’t lie to family.
I think we lie to family more than anyone else.
The Lady from the Sea is a thrilling dissection of desire, loss and rebirth for the contemporary age.
Fearful she may have settled too easily for a comfortable life married to a well-off doctor, Ellida searches for a way to break the predictable routine her existence has become. When a lover from her past appears at their remote country house, she has to choose between the life she has now built and the one she left behind long ago.
This new adaptation of Ibsen’s classic play is written and directed by Simon Stone (Yerma, Phaedra).
Her Father’s Voice
Shane O’Reilly ($24)
- Donated
I never want her to think she’s not good enough.
Three generations under one roof. A young girl faces cochlear implant surgery as her parents wrestle with the weight of their choices. The unexpected arrival of a Deaf mother and daughter unearths buried truths that echo across generations.
Shane O’Reilly fuses theatre, opera and film in a bold and ambitious new work.
This contemporary family drama – tense, humorous, and authentic – pulses with reverberations of decisions that will shape the future. Some things cannot be silenced.
Latin American Plays in Translation: Modern Stories of Gender, Class and Society in Latin America
Zhui Ning Chang and Global Voices Theatre ($52)
- Donated
Six new plays from Latin America’s most exciting and incisive playwrights, newly translated for an English-language audience.
From streetwise urchins with a sharp eye for political discourse in Chile to artists who dream of better futures amidst crisis in Perú; from fairy-tale parodies of Princess Diana as an expression of gender-based violence to mundane, everyday acts of love amid hardship, Latin American Plays in Translation offers a unique insight into the concerns and creative responses of some of Latin America’s leading contemporary playwrights.
Essential Shakespeare: The Arden Guide to Text and Interpretation
Pamela Bickley and Jenny Steven ($44)
- Donated
Addressing the transition from pre-university to undergraduate Shakespeare studies, this introductory critical guide examines 16 key plays. Each chapter focuses on modern theoretical methods, close reading skills, early modern contexts, and productions from stage and screen spanning several decades.
You will gain insights into each play, develop skills of analysis and be introduced to a diverse range of critical approaches that are central to the study of English today. Suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter, together with examples of Shakespearean adaptation across genres, media and time.
Puppetry in Theatre and Arts Education: Head, Hands and Heart
Johanna Smith ($52)
- Donated
Winner of a Nancy Staub Award for Excellence in Publications on the Art of Puppetry
Connecting the art of puppetry with deeper learning for children, this workbook offers a comprehensive guide on how to bring puppetry into the classroom. It places puppet design, construction and manipulation at the heart of arts education and as a key contributor to ‘manual intelligence’ in young people.
Packed with practical, illustrated exercises using materials and technology readily available to teachers, Puppetry in Theatre and Arts Education shows you how the craft can enliven and enrich any classroom environment, and offers helpful links between puppetry, the curriculum and other aspects of education.
Informed by developments in assessments and cognitive research, this book features approachable puppetry activities, educational strategies and lesson plans for teachers that expand any syllabus and unlock new methods of learning, including:
– Making puppets from basic materials and everyday objects
– Puppetizing children’s literature
– Puppetizing science
– Film-making with puppets
Puppetry in Theatre and Arts Education is a core text for arts education courses as well as an essential addition to any teacher’s arsenal of teaching strategies.
Creating a Character: A Physical Approach to Acting
Moni Yakim and Muriel Broadman ($37)
- Donated
For over 20 years, Moni Yakim has taught his unique blend of physical training and emotional exploration to a generation of American actors that include Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, and Kevin Kline. Now, for the first time, his acting process is available to every actor and theater professional.
Four Boobs on a Rooftop
Maggie Tavares ($15)
- Donated
Both 28 years old in the year 2000, Freya and Eve are at pivotal moments in their lives—Eve has just (reluctantly) broken up with a long-term boyfriend and Freya wants to settle down and have a child.
As the two women lounge, they talk of cats, poetry, and men before drifting off to explore, in a strange and fluid space, what they truly desire for themselves, or at least what they have been allowed to.
The Place Where the Geese Have Been
Toph Whitmore ($15)
- Donated
Modern business can be innovative. Creative. Dynamic. But it can also be really, really dumb.
The Place Where the Geese Have Been is an award-winning two-act stage comedy that aims its rapid-fire satire directly at the absurdities of the corporate world. Newly-minted MBA Peter starts what he thinks is his dream job at management consulting firm Rossi•Greylag. He meets new boss Linda, whose people skills include bullying, taking credit for others’ work, and sleeping with clients. Peter’s associates Christine and Edmund also welcome him to the company…by setting him up as the fall guy. What could possibly go wrong with that arrangement? Not the big client presentation, which will surely run smoothly and not lead to an explosion that subsequently releases hazardous chemicals and triggers widespread power outages. Right? Right?
Between cushy business-class flights, Michelin-star meals billed to the customer, and client meetings that devolve into violence, Peter seeks out the counsel of his mother Valérie, a hockey goon who leads her league in penalty minutes; Ellie, the company receptionist who fights forest fires in her spare time; and Diane, a colleague who finds joy in firing people.
In a corporate environment that prioritizes efficiency over humanity, what will Peter sacrifice to get ahead? His conscience? His dignity? Some semblance of a personal life? As pressure builds, he’ll have to figure out how to do what’s right…for himself, for the client, for the firm, and maybe even for love.
The Cull
Michele Riml and Michael St. John Smith ($19)
- Donated
A group of longtime friends gathers for an intimate 25th anniversary dinner celebration as a forest fire rages out of control in the nearby mountains of southeastern BC. When an unexpected gift transforms a discussion about the local wolf cull into a heated argument over economic inequality, conflicting values within the tight-knit group are revealed. The Cull contrasts the dynamics of human self-interest with the instinctive communal behaviour of wolves… turning this particular dinner party into a night of “eat or be eaten.”
Boom Baby
Natalie Meisner ($19)
- Donated
Iona, a young woman from Canada’s east coast, works as a heavy equipment operator in the Alberta oilfields. When she finds herself pregnant after a casual encounter with a friend, Iona knows she can’t raise a child in a work camp. She considers having an abortion, but then she meets a couple working in management for the company who are unable to have children. When they present her with a proposal to adopt the baby, Iona recoils from the idea that everything has a dollar value. What can and cannot be sold? Shared resources? A river? The future? Boom Baby explores complex questions with heart and humour.
Vierge
Rachel Mutombo ($19)
- Donated
When sixteen-year-old Divine joins a new church, she meets Bien-Aime, Grace, and Sarah, who are eager to ditch the Bibles and baptize Divine into the real world of boys, booze and blasphemy. In a church where gossip flows faster than prayers, secrets, lies and shifting alliances threaten the genuine sisterhood and friendship that each of these girls desperately needs. Vierge follows these four Congolese-Canadian girls as they navigate the tangled mess of faith, sexuality, and the pressures of being teenagers growing up in a traditional community.
Dietrich & Maria
Scot Moir ($15)
- Donated
Dietrich & Maria is the true love story of German pastor, theologian, and spy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and his fiancee, Maria Von Wedemeyer. Based on their real-life prison letters, the story takes place in Germany during the early days of WWII, with Dietrich imprisoned on charges of conspiracy for his role in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The play is set during one of Maria’s secret prison visits to Dietrich.
Dietrich & Maria is a “two-hander”, which means only two actors will be on stage for the entire show. If you’ve never attended a one or two person play, you are in for a treat. A stage full of actors is what creates another world, certainly; but a well-executed two-hander casts an intimate spell and creates a moment. Audience members will be invited, not just into a prison sitting room, but into the complex relationship between a just man and a fearless woman, and the deep bond of love they shared.
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of Hamlet
Matt Bernard and Warren Bain ($15)
- Donated
Sherlock Holmes and his steadfast assistant Dr. John Watson are called to Elsinore Castle, Denmark, to aid in solving the mystery of not only who killed the late King Hamlet, but who’s been appearing as his ghostly figure around the castle.
Dot and Ada do A Christmas Carol
Jonah Anderson ($15)
- Donated
Dot and Ada are decorating for Christmas and doing last minute rehearsals for this year’s Christmas play: A Christmas Carol. Dot has done it again with her adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Classic! Dot will play the lead as usual, Ada will accompany her as the ghosts and other characters, Frank will play a small role, and Molly got food poisoning from a bad fruit cake. What does this mean? It means that Josh has to stand in whenever he is needed, ready or not, live in front of an audience. Luckily there’s a script he can take on stage with him as he performs roles he has never even read before.
This is a madcap version of A Christmas Carol that still includes all the important parts but with a dash of side-splitting comedy to the mix. However, this does not pull focus from the beautiful masterpiece that is A Christmas Carol as Scrooge still has his poignant moment at the end knowing that Christmas is meant to be cherished and through the magic of Dot and Ada, the holiday is no longer one worthy of a famous exclamation of Humbug!
The Lady That’s Known as Lou (An Actor Celebrates Robert Service)
Clint Ward ($15)
- Donated
Robert Service gave us the stimulation we craved on long winter nights. An actor of feeling and talent could illuminate the poems and it would be a good evening of fun and laughter which is just what we need. Turn on the lights and watch a single actor bring Robert Service to life again.
Honour and Deceit
Peter Weston ($15)
- Donated
The time frame of this play is October 1940 to November 1942 and the principal location is Britain’s cabinet war chambers, a large underground bunker in London.
Churchill is the main character of this play. Mary Churchill was Winston’s cherished youngest daughter, 17, at the outbreak of the war (Sept. ’39). She ‘pitched in’ as required. In her own right, Mary was a remarkable young woman. In addition to joining Winston on many of his missions as his Aid de Camp (ADC) and serving as Winston’s girl Friday, availability permitting, she served with London’s anti-aircraft gun batteries attaining the rank equivalent to captain (a command of 230 women) at war’s end, age 22.
Mary’s contribution in the play acknowledges the cadre of young women who worked 24-7 in the underground war cabinet chamber from lights on (Sept. 39) to lights off (Aug. ’45).
The story runs from the last few days of the Battle of Britain (Oct. ’40) to the breakthrough at the Battle of El Alamein (Nov. 42). During this period, Britain went from ‘hopeless but bashing on to the last man’ to ‘we can win!’
There are two subjects of conflict in Britain’s air war addressed herein. The first, the clash of personalities of the air marshals: the technically brilliant but taciturn Air Chief-Marshal Hugh Dowding, the underrated and hard driving Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park and the egotistical, ambitious and slippery Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Second, the raging controversy (at the time): The ‘big wing’ tactic v/s the ‘Fabian’ tactic. The big wing pitted mass formation against the enemy mass formations while the Fabian strategy conserved assets and allowed the enemy to waste its assets and to exhaust itself attacking targets insignificant to the conduct of battle.
The play follows Winston Churchill as he manages this caldron during the most desperate days of early WWII.
The Recipe
Armin Wiebe ($19)
- Donated
It’s 1960 in rural Manitoba, and Oata has just discovered that her fiance, Yasch, has been stepping out with skinny Sadie Nickel. Oata is torn–does she still want to hitch her wagon to this fickle dow-nix? When a distraught Sadie turns up at Oata’s door, asking about a recipe rumoured to help a woman whose period is late, Oata must decide whether to help. In the process, Oata reassesses her situation and her own abundant assets. Does she really need pants with a man in them to run a farm?
