Wayne Johnston, Ian Arnold at Catalyst TCM, St
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NAC ENGLISH THEATRE JILLIAN KEILEY – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JAN 25 – FEB 11 2017 NAC THEATRE WayneBASED ON THE Johnston BESTSELLING NOVEL BY ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY Robert Chafe DIRECTED BY Jillian Keiley An Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland production in collaboration with NAC English Theatre OFFICIAL HOTEL PARTNER SPECIAL THANK YOU TO Dr. Kanta Marwah Endowment for English Theatre GoodLife Fitness (Rideau Centre Co-Ed Club) CAST COLIN FURLONG Joey Smallwood CARMEN GRANT* Sheilagh Fielding DARRYL HOPKINS David Hanrahan/Gordon Bradley WILLOW KEAN Clara Smallwood/Nurse BRIAN MARLER* Daniel Prowse STEVE O’CONNELL Charlie Smallwood JODY RICHARDSON* Sir Richard Squires PAUL ROWE* Andrews/Louis St. Laurent CHARLIE TOMLINSON* MacKenzie King/Sir John Hope Simpson ALISON WOOLRIDGE* Minnie Smallwood/Lady Squires Cast listed in alphabetical order CREATIVE TEAM ROBERT CHAFE Playwright JILLIAN KEILEY Director PATRICK BOYLE Composer SHAWN KERWIN Set Designer MARIE SHARPE Costume Designer LEIGH ANN VARDY Lighting Designer DON ELLIS Sound Designer COURTNEY BROWN Assistant Director SARAH GARTON STANLEY Dramaturg KAI-YUEH CHEN* Stage Manager CRYSTAL LAFFOLEY Assistant Stage Manager PATRICK FORAN Producer/Production Manager BRIAN KENNY Technical Director/Associate Sound Designer LAURA CASWELL Directing Shadow The Colony of Unrequited Dreams runs approximately three hours long including two intermissions. The National Arts Centre is a member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres. Please completely turn off all phones. Photography, audio and video recording of this performance by any means is prohibited. *Engaged with the permission of Canada’s Actors’ Equity Association. 2 Follow us on facebook: facebook.com/NACEnglishTheatre THANK YOU The Colony of Unrequited Dreams was developed with the support of The Shaw Festival, Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre, Memorial University’s Department of English, National Arts Centre English Theatre, the City of St. John’s and the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council. Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland wishes to thank Grant Thornton LLP (St. John’s Office), John Williams at Dick’s & Co-Typewriter repairs, Livyer’s Antiques, Ray Agency, Domestic Moving & Storage, Wayne Johnston, Ian Arnold at Catalyst TCM, St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre, Canada’s National Arts Centre English Theatre, Neptune Theatre, The Grand Theatre, Parish of the Anglican Cathedral, MusicNL, Memorial University of Newfoundland School of Music, Technically Yours Inc., Air Magic FX, Contractor Kents, Kanstor, The City of St. John’s, VOCM 590AM, The Telegram, CBC Radio One in St. John’s, Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre, Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, Shaw Festival, Joanna Falck, Sarah Garton Stanley, Jillian Keiley, Alison Woolridge, Brian Marler, Paul Rowe, Mark Power, Petrina Bromley, Marie Jones, Patrick Foran, Janet Edmonds, Andrew Crawford, Stephanie Dahmer Brett, Jonah Lerner, Oceanex, Truck and Roll, Karl Simmons, Flora Planchat, Astrid Van Wieren, Sydney Cavanagh, and Janet Ellis. ABOUT ARTISTIC FRAUD OF NEWFOUNDLAND Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland was formed in St. John’s in 1995. Over the past 20 years it has come to be hailed as one of English Canada’s most daring and innovative companies. The works of Artistic Fraud and its creators, Jillian Keiley and Robert Chafe, have played across the country to high acclaim, and have garnered Jillian the 2004 Siminovitch Prize for directing and Robert the 2010 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. Since its inception the company has been developing a unique brand of choral stage work, the goal of which is deeply rooted in the theatrical possibilities of ensemble performance. With often minimal setting, props and technical elements, the ensemble chorus is given full reign and responsibility for all visual and aural elements. Though carefully plotted and meticulously assembled, the goal of the work is the effortlessly organic; a performer driven stage where spectacle meets story. Board of Directors: Chair David Somers, B. Sc. (Mech Eng.); Treasurer David A. Hood, FCA, ICD.D, TEP; Director Chris Brookes, C.M., D. Lit; Director John Drover, B.A.,M.A., LLB; Director Erin French, B.A.; Director Jenny Smith, B.A., M.A. Charitable Registration: 89708 3283 RR0001 Engage in the arts with NAC videos: youtube.com/NACvideosCNA 3 DIRECTOR’S NOTES “When the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa were reconstructed after a fire during the First World War, stone plaques were erected over the entrance to the Peace Tower. There were ten of them, nine bearing the coats of arms of the provinces and one left bare, to await the day when Newfoundland joined Canada. On April 1, 1949, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent cut the first ceremonial chisel strokes onto the blank stone. Accompanying St. Laurent was a Newfoundlander, F. Gordon Bradley, who had just been sworn in as a member of the Canadian Cabinet. ‘We are all Canadians now,’ he proclaimed. Yet Newfoundlanders’ decision to enter into a union with Canada contradicted their history. They were a proud people who many decades before had chosen a destiny alongside Canada, rather than as part of it. Newfoundlanders lived dangerously and alone, in the memorable phrase of historian Peter Neary, with a small and scattered population and a highly vulnerable resource economy.” — Historica Canada, The Canadian Encyclopedia In Wayne Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, the complex tangling of our two nations is represented through the struggle between indomitable, diminutive Joey Smallwood, the last living Father of Confederation, and the imagined Sheilagh Feilding: wild, jagged, humoured, outsized. Through their untenable and inexpressible relationship, their mutual revulsion and adoration, they are forever linked, in a saviour’s bed under a blanket of betrayal. The performance is offered in three short acts. Act One contains the original fall of the national Newfoundland Government in 1932. In Act Two, Newfoundland in the Second World War was under commission of Government; once again a colony of Britain. Finally, in Act Three, we see the move towards Confederation with Canada, and Smallwood’s successful bid to finally become a somebody — a lesser king of a larger country. Jillian Keiley NAC ENGLISH THEATRE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 4 Follow the NAC on Twitter @CanadasNAC PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTES I have a confession to make: in writing this history play, I did precious little historical research. When I wrote Oil and Water my desk was covered in books, the same with Tempting Providence. My desk this time around had one book, and lots and lots of Post-it notes. I read Wayne’s novel ten times or more, dissecting it, cutting it up and reassembling it. What I didn’t do was give much consideration to historical accuracy. Wayne himself strayed from the record, most notably of course in his creation of Sheilagh Fielding. I have strayed further. In adapting this epic book, certain things are necessarily lost or truncated, and certain facets of Smallwood and Newfoundland’s history are mutated, twisted, or omitted all together. The history buff will have no trouble calling me out. But I made my primary task to reflect the spirit and heart of this magnificent book within the often-confining demands of a stage play. I hope what remains here evokes the sweep of Wayne’s storytelling, and in some way continues his investigation of the man, his country, and the key moments that made and unmade them. Robert Chafe PLAYWRIGHT MUSIC NOTES The music of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams invokes the jazz spirit, in that pieces were both composed and improvised. This “comprovisational” approach facilitates the creation of sounds that are of the moment, unbound by genre, and unique to this production and these people: Bill Brennan (piano, vibraphone), Frank Fusari (accordion, double bass), Heather Kao (violin, piano), Don Ellis (engineer) and me, Patrick Boyle (trumpet, guitars, piano, loops). Patrick Boyle COMPOSER Explore Canada’s Stage nac-cna.ca/explore 5 NOVELIST Wayne Johnston Author Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. After a brief stint in pre-Med, Wayne obtained a BA in English from Memorial University. He worked as a reporter for the St. John’s Daily News before deciding to devote himself full-time to writing at the age of 23. En route to being published, Wayne earned an MA (Creative Writing) from the University of New Brunswick. Then he got off to a quick start: his first book, The Story of Bobby O’Malley, was published when he was just 26 years old, won the annual WH Smith/ Books in Canada First Novel award for Canada’s best first novel published in the English language. Subsequent books consistently received critical praise and increasing public attention. The Divine Ryans was adapted to the silver screen for a production starring Academy Award-winner Pete Postlethwaite, for which Wayne wrote the screenplay. Baltimore’s Mansion, a memoir dealing with his grandfather, his father and Wayne himself, was tremendously well-received and won the most prestigious prize for creative non-fiction awarded in Canada — the Charles Taylor Prize. Both The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and Navigator of New York spent extended periods of time on best seller lists in Canada and have also been published in the US, Britain, Germany, Holland and China. Colony was identified by The Globe and Mail as one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever produced (fiction or non-fiction). The Custodian of Paradise was released to critical acclaim and an enthusiastic response from readers delighted to see a novel which told more of the story of Sheilagh Fielding — a character originally introduced in The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Custodian remained on the Maclean’s best sellers list for six months after publication. A World Elsewhere was a number-one-best-seller in Canada and nominated for the Dublin Impac Award. The Son of a Certain Woman, Wayne’s latest book, has received rave reviews and was nominated for the Giller Prize.