Ann-Marie MacDonald is an award-winning novelist, playwright, actor, and broadcast host. Her writing for the stage includes the plays Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), Belle Moral: A Natural History, and Hamlet-911, along with the libretto for the chamber opera Nigredo Hotel, and book and lyrics for the musical Anything That Moves. She is the author of the bestselling novels Fall on Your Knees, The Way the Crow Flies, Adult Onset, and Fayne. MacDonald is a graduate of the Acting Program of The National Theatre School of Canada. In 2019 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of her contribution to the arts and her LGBTQ2SI+ activism. She is married to theatre director Alisa Palmer, with whom she has two children.
A blazing collection of responses to the ongoing Canada v. America trade war and ensuing swell of national unity, from a remarkable array of some of our sharpest and most influential Canadian minds, edited by Elamin Abdelahmoud.
It feels disorienting, and at times existential, to watch a trade war escalate and to hear an American president vow to make Canada the “51st state.” But amid the disorientation, there is an urgent question: how do we meet the moment?
The fact that treaties can be broken, that resources can be stolen, and that the consequences of land theft include loss of culture, ritual, and identity is not new to the Indigenous and refugee peoples living in this country. But to many other Canadians, this kind of threat is new. As a result, there appears to be a new sense of a “we” emerging. People are angry and standing together with renewed shared purpose. The swell of Canadian pride is undeniable and important to acknowledge. This is a pivotal moment in history to take stock of how we got here, to learn from our past and walk tenaciously together into an uncertain future.
Inspired by the 1968 collection The New Romans: Candid Canadian Opinions of the US, this new anthology will be edited by bestselling author and CBC host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, and features responses from Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Jesse Wente, Atom Egoyan, Canisia Lubrin, Tom Power, Niigaan Sinclair, Jay Baruchel, and many more, speaking candidly on America, and Canada, and the malleable contours of a national narrative still taking hold.
“A zeitgeisty paean to boundary-defying love, friendship and the beauty of this endangered planet. I confess to a lump in my throat.” –Daily Mail
A beloved writer returns with a tale of science, magic, love, and identity.
In the late 19th century, Charlotte Bell is growing up at Fayne, a vast and lonely estate straddling the border between England and Scotland, where she has been kept from the world by her adoring father, Lord Henry Bell, owing to a mysterious condition.
Charlotte, strong and insatiably curious, revels in the moorlands, and has learned the treacherous and healing ways of the bog from the old hired man, Byrn, whose own origins are shrouded in mystery. Her idyllic existence is shadowed by the magnificent portrait on the landing in Fayne House which depicts her mother, a beautiful Irish-American heiress, holding Charlotte’s brother, Charles Bell. Charlotte has grown up with the knowledge that her mother died in giving birth to her, and that her older brother, Charles, the long-awaited heir, died soon afterwards at the age of two. When Charlotte’s appetite for learning threatens to exceed the bounds of the estate, her father breaks with tradition and hires a tutor to teach his daughter “as you would my son, had I one.” But when Charlotte and her tutor’s explorations of the bog turn up an unexpected artefact, her father announces he has arranged for her to be cured of her condition, and her world is upended. Charlotte’s passion for knowledge and adventure will take her to the bottom of family secrets and to the heart of her own identity.
Mary Rose MacKinnon—nicknamed MR or “Mister”—is a successful author who has opted to put aside her career in her 40s and devote herself to her young family. She lives in a comfortable urban neighbourhood with her partner, a busy theatre director, and their two children, trying valiantly and often hilariously to balance the demands of (mostly) solo parenting with the needs of her relentlessly spry but elderly parents. As a child, she suffered from an illness, long since cured and “filed separately” in her mind. But as domestic frustrations mount, she experiences a flare-up of forgotten symptoms which compel her to rethink her own childhood. Over the course of one outwardly ordinary week, Mister’s world threatens to unravel, as the spectre of violence raises its head with dangerous implications for her and her children. Crafted with humour and unerring emotional accuracy, Adult Onset is a contemporary tale by turns searing and uplifting.
Starring Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Ann-Marie MacDonald & Paul Myers
Starring Holly Brickley, Gabrielle Hamilton, Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Paul Myers, Terry O’Reilly & Andrew Phung. Hosted by Pam Rocker
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
Join our email list to receive a reminder when shows go on sale.
