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MARGARET ATWOOD’S THE PENELOPIAD season sponsor title sponsor WELCOME Supporting the arts, locally. I have long enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s The suggested that the renowned actor Seana Penelopiad and have been fortunate enough McKenna return to the Grand after over 20 to see multiple productions across the years to star in this production, and we were country. The play is admirable in its boldness delighted when we learned that Seana would of thought, delightful and pointed examina- indeed be our Penelope. tions, and the unflinching ability Atwood has to speak directly to us. Using mythology as a catalyst to consider the similarities and differences between ancient When putting together this production, I times and our modern world is a delightfully knew that celebrated actor Megan Follows cheeky way to introduce powerful ideas. This had played the lead, Penelope, to great large ensemble of artists is ready and willing acclaim. My instinct said that someone with to lead us and catapult us into these ideas, a strong connection to this play would be of controversies, and truths. Let the dialogue great benefit. While I would have welcomed begin. her to recreate the role on our stage, Megan is also a highly respected director, and from this angle she could fully explore the play on dennis garnhum Each year, through various donations an entirely different level. It was Megan who artistic director and sponsorships, we are committed to helping our local communities. We would like to acknowledge the history of the traditional territory in which the Grand Theatre operates. We We’re proud to be the 2018/2019 season would also like to respect the longstanding relationships of the three local First Nations groups of this land and sponsor of the Grand Theatre. place in Southwestern Ontario. The three First Nations communities closest in proximity to the Grand are the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation (part of the Anishinaabe), the Oneida Nation of the Thames (part of the Haudenosaunee) and the Munsee-Delaware Nation (part of the Leni-Lunaape). 18-1626 The Grand Theatre_Ev2.indd 1 20/08/2018 12:06:49 PM spriet stage, january 22 to february 9, 2019 W4W is a group of bold, curious, opening night january 25 audacious, and creative women with one common passion: The Penelopiad By Margaret Atwood To celebrate, support, and Directed by Megan Follows title sponsor advance the work of women Starring Seana McKenna Margaret Atwood's in Canadian Theatre – cast starting in our home town, Odysseus/Maid/Suitor PRANEET AKILLA The penelopiad Laertes/Maid/Suitor CLAIRE ARMSTRONG in our theatre. Telemachus/Maid/ Suitor/Dance & Vocal Captain TESS BENGER Melantho/Maid/Suitor NADINE BHABHA Naiad Mother/Maid/Suitor INGRID BLEKYS Kerthia/Maid/Suitor DÉJAH DIXON-GREEN Members to date* Icarius/Anticleia/Maid/ Suitor DEBORAH DRAKEFORD Penelope SEANA MCKENNA LED BY Helen/Maid/Suitor ELLORA PATNAIK Rachel Berdan Menelaus/Eurycleia/Maid/Suitor MONICE PETER Lynn Davis Oracle/Antinous/Maid/Suitor SIOBHAN RICHARDSON Patricia Hoffer Nicole Spriet production team Kelly Tranquilli Director MEGAN FOLLOWS Choreographer PHILIPPA DOMVILLE Maia Bent Kate Milner Set Designer CHARLOTTE DEAN Lina Bowden Susan Nickle Costume Designer DANA OSBORNE Sue Carlyle Liisa Sheldrick Lighting Designer BONNIE BEECHER Sarah Hilton Karen Stone Projection Designer JAMIE NESBITT Kathleen Holland Margaret Szilassy Composer/Sound Designer/Vocal Coach DEANNA H. CHOI Nadia Joseph Jill Wilcox Fight Director SIOBHAN RICHARDSON Barb Legate Betty Anne Younker Aerial Silks Choreographer DIANA LOPEZ SOTO Stage Manager BEATRICE CAMPBELL Marilena Marignani Assistant Stage Manager LOREEN GIBSON *As of print date Apprentice Stage Manager LORALIE POLLARD title sponsor The Grand Theatre is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatre (PACT) To find out more about W4W, please contact: and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. The Grand Theatre acknowledges with thanks the Suzanne Lanthier co-operation of Locals 105 and 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Director of Development 519-672-9030 x251 [email protected] Picture Technicians, Artists, and Allied Crafts of the United States, its Territories and Canada, and the London Musicians’ Association Local 209. THANK YOU TO The videotaping or other video or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibited. OUR SPONSORS THE SPRIET STAGE IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY HELEN & ANDY SPRIET. program sponsors season sponsor Grand Gala Accessing Season Hosting Assistive Hearing Presenting Sponsor the Arts Partner Devices title sponsors An Undiscovered Timothy Findley’s The Wars Barber Shop Chronicles A Christmas Carol Shakespeare 100 Schools Students Club Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad Vigilante August Wilson’s Fences Cabaret Mamma Mia! COMPASS New Play Development Barber Shop Chronicles Wardrobe Internship Accommodation Partners In tribute to Gloria & Joseph Gilbert high school project Title Sponsor Make a Difference Program Partners partners Community Pillar Partner Westminster Florist Hotel Wine Framing Wardrobe & Props College Foundation government funders Vehicles Apparel Catering Lighting Printing DIRECTOR’S NOTES Much like its source, The Odyssey, Atwood’s The Penelopiad presents us with an epic—a story worth telling again and again; rich with so many layers of narrative and so many reflections of our human psyche. Today this story is more relevant than ever. The woman who was rendered a footnote in the saga of her husband’s life becomes the protagonist. And yet she tells us her story, at long last, from Hades. Fighting for a voice, fighting for her story, Penelope must also contend with yet another competing narrative, that of her maids, whose lives—lives lived in TIME FOR THE service of her own—were sacrificed. The play asks us to examine the intersections of narrative that make up our history, to reckon with that honestly, and to consider the cost of our complic- ity as we go on to tell and retell our stories. “The play you hold in your hands is an echo of an echo of an echo of an echo of an echo of SECOND ACT an echo.” This is how Atwood’s author’s introduction of her play begins. A story that began as a myth, a legend, passed on through generations of orators, written down at some point and rewritten from there, has reverberated through our literary canon for centuries. Eventually, in Atwood’s hands, it shifted perspectives and mediums. For me, it is also an echo of an echo. I came to this work first as an actor, and in my experience, speaking Atwood’s words is like chewing glass dipped in rich chocolate. When you’re in her world it is so arresting, sharp, delicate, and dangerous, and yet beautiful and delicious. It is an honour to approach this work as director this time around, and I am thrilled to hear these words brought to life anew here at the NOW Grand. Another echo of this story. 60% At one point, Penelope states, “I had to use SOLD every ruse and stratagem at my command.” The play demands our intelligence and our full attention; it invites us to reconsider, to experiment. And in putting together this production, I used every bit of brilliance and artistry on offer from my team of designers and performers as we put together a stylistic collage to try to tell our story: the story of what these words mean to us today. megan follows MEGAN FOLLOWS AS PENELOPE IN THE NIGHTWOOD THEATRE PRODUCTION OF THE PENELOPIAD 2013. PHOTO BY ROBERT POPKIN. THETRICARGROUP THE_TRICAR_GROUP TRICARGROUP Margaret Atwood PHOTO BY JEAN MALEK at the Fore Margaret Atwood is an award-winning of her MaddAddam trilogy — following the Canadian poet, novelist, and literary critic. events both before and after a man-made She is the author of the novel The Penelopiad, global apocalypse — is currently in devel- as well as the writer of the play adaptation, opment. As well, a sequel to The Handmaid’s her first work of theatre. Atwood was born Tale, titled The Testaments, will be published in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in Northern in September 2019. Ontario. She studied at the University of Across her oeuvre, Atwood gives us a lan- Toronto’s Victoria College and subsequently guage to help us understand and grapple with at Harvard University’s Radcliffe College the darkness of our times, and an outline where she earned an m.a. in English. of ‘how not to exist’: Oryx and Crake depicts Writing since the 1960s, Atwood is an the fallout of one man’s ego gone wild, The exceptionally prolific literary figure. Over Handmaid’s Tale shows us the human conse- her 60-year career, she has penned 16 novels, quences of totalitarian rule under a radical 8 collections of short fiction, 17 collections theocracy, and The Penelopiad shows us of poetry, 8 children’s books, 10 non-fiction the tragedy that occurs at the intersection books, and numerous other reviews, articles, of power, gender, and class. Her evocative screenplays, and shorter writings. Many imagery has become pervasive, particularly of Atwood’s well-known books like The in post-2016 America. “Make Margaret Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, The Robber Bride, Atwood Fiction Again” is now a popular pro- Cat’s Eye, and The Blind Assassin deal with test slogan, women have taken to donning the women who transgress against the systems attire of a handmaid in silent protest against of power in which they are entrenched. legislative decisions that might restrict the rights of women in the u.s., and Atwood is Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985. more popular than ever. The novel is set in a speculative future society named Gilead where infertility has Atwood has long been preoccupied with become endemic, and the few women who unearthing the stories of women who occupy are able to conceive are forced to become spaces where they are often erased — making handmaids, tasked with providing children visible the women who were present all along, to the society’s most wealthy and powerful but relegated to narrative backgrounds.