Original production stills from Consecrated Ground (1999, Ken Kam), Glace Bay Miners' Museum (1995, Thaddeus Holownia), as well as EFT founding AD, Mary Vingoe outside Alderney Landing Theatre (1999, Hannah Thomson).
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To celebrate our move back to Alderney Landing, we hosted a “Homecoming” play-reading series, which ran March 12th and 13th 2021. The series revisited two of our most popular and important plays from our 28-year history: Glace Bay Miners’ Museum by Wendy Lill and Consecrated Ground by George Elroy Boyd.
Glace Bay Miners' Museum is a play based on the novel by Sheldon Currie, and was first co-produced by EFT and Ship's Company Theatre in 1995. Consecrated Ground was first produced by EFT in 1999. Both plays were nominated for Governor General Awards and are intimate Atlantic Canadian works that speak to the heart of what it is to live within a community - in particular, the two Nova Scotian communities of Glace Bay and Africville. Joining us to direct the series was Mary Vingoe, founding EFT AD and original director of Glace Bay Miners' Museum, plus David Woods, the original Reverend Miner of Consecrated Ground. |
To compliment our in-person offering, we have recorded an audio drama of Natalie Meisner's Boom Baby with the original cast of the cancelled 2021 production. Boom Baby follows Iona from Cape Breton to the oil sands of Alberta, where she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, and is faced with a dilemma. A solution presents itself when Brooke, a PR manager who is unable to have a child of her own, hears of Iona’s situation and offers to “help.” In Canada a surrogate mother cannot be paid, but rather must operate under the assumption of altruism. And yet everything in the work camp environment is measured in dollars and cents. The deal the women strike ultimately raises the question of just what can or can’t be bought or sold. A new human life? An existing one? A river? A water table? The future?
Cast & Crew
The Playwrights
George Elroy Boyd was a playwright and a former co-host of the CBC Morning News. He was the first black national news anchor in Canada, working as an original anchor of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Newsworld, which launched in 1989. One of a family of nine, of seventh-generation Empire Loyalist stock, Boyd was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has written for the stage, radio, television and motion pictures. In 1988, with his debut play, Shine Boy, Boyd became the first indigenous African-Nova Scotian to have a play professionally produced at Neptune Theatre, Nova Scotia's premier main stage. Since then, his plays were shown in Lahore, Pakistan, Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal and New York, USA, among other locales. A recipient of numerous awards from his native Nova Scotia, in 2000, his play Consecrated Ground was nominated for a Governor General's Award for drama. Wade in the Water, produced by the Black Theatre Workshop of Montreal in 2004, and Centaur Theatre in 2005, garnered Boyd a nomination for the Montreal English Critics Circle Award (MECCA). More recently his play Gideon's Blues was adapted into an hour-long TV drama called The Gospel According to the Blues, directed by Thom Fitzgerald for Emotion Pictures. Boyd resided in Montreal. His 2009 play, Le Code Noir, about the life of 18th-century composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was produced by Black Theatre Workshop of Montreal, at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts. One of Boyd's last works was tentatively entitled The Days Of Douglass, and regarded the final days in the life of Frederick Douglass. Boyd died July 7, 2020 in Montreal, Quebec.
Wendy Lill is a playwright and former parliamentarian who has written extensively for radio, theatre and film. Lill is the author of The Fighting Days (1983), The Occupation of Heather Rose (1985), Memories of You (1988), Sisters (1989), All Fall Down (1993), Corker (1998), Glace Bay Miners’ Museum (based on the short story by Sheldon Currie) (1995), Chimera (2007), and most recently Messenger (2015). Her plays are produced in professional and community theatres and universities across Canada and internationally. All of her plays are published by Talon Books. The Occupation of Heather Rose, All Fall Down, Corker, and Glace Bay Miners’ Museum have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Drama. Glace Bay Miners’ Museum has been translated into Japanese and performed in Japan. It was also been translated into French and won Les Masque Award, L‘Academie Quebecois du Theatre Award, 1998 for translation and adaptation. Memories of You has been translated to French and produced in Montreal (1993). The Occupation of Heather Rose has been translated into Danish and most recently, Czech. It has been published in a recent anthology of Czech Translation (2015) and will have a staged reading this spring in Prague. Her plays Sisters and Memories of You have been adapted to television for the Stage on Screen series. Lill's work has also resulted in two ACTRA awards, a Golden Sheaf Award (for the film Ikwe), and a New York Festival International Radio Programs and Promotions Award in 2011 for the popular radio drama series Backbencher. Based on her experiences as a Member of Parliament, Lill created Backbencher and was the head writer for the CBC series (2009-2011). In 2011, Lill received the Merritt Legacy Award for her contributions to theatre in Nova Scotia and Canada. Her latest play, Messenger, inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, premiered in 2015 at Neptune’s Scotia Bank Studio Theatre, a co-production of HomeFirst and Eastern Front Theatres. In 2015, Messenger was nominated for three Merritt awards, including best play.Lill was born in Vancouver and grew up in London, Ontario. She completed a BA in political science at York University in Toronto. Lill lived in Winnipeg from 1979 until 1984 doing freelance radio documentary work for CBC and School Broadcasts. During this time, she began writing plays and developed a productive association with Prairie Theatre Exchange and its artistic director, Kim McCaw. In 1988, Lill moved to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia with her husband Richard Starr where she began another important artistic collaboration with artistic director, Mary Vingoe. In 1993, Lill co-founded the Eastern Front Theatre Company in Dartmouth with Mary Vingoe and Gay Hauser.In 1997, Lill was elected as Member of Parliament for Dartmouth and re-elected in 2000 for a second term. During that time, she was the NDP critic for heritage and culture and persons with disabilities. Many of her views have been informed by her experience living with and advocating for her son with a disability. Lill lives in Dartmouth with Richard and is delighted to have their sons, Joe and Sam (and two sweet grandsons), living just a few blocks away.
Natalie Meisner is a playwright, an award-winning multi-genre author and 5th Poet Laureate of Calgary. Her work often deploys the power of comedy for social change. BADDIE ONE SHOE (Frontenac) is a collection of odes to renegade women who fight the powers that be with laughter. LEGISLATING LOVE: THE EVERETT KLIPPERT STORY (University of Calgary Press) illuminates the life of a beloved Calgary bus driver and the last Canadian to be jailed for homosexuality. Her play BOOM BABY won both the Canadian National & the Alberta Playwriting Award. SPEED DATING FOR SPERM DONORS (Playwright’s Canada Press) was a hit at Lunchbox & Neptune. Double Pregnant: Two Lesbians Make a Family (Fernwood) topped non-fiction lists and her first book for kids My Mommy, My Mama My Brother & Me (Nimbus) is about a two-mom biracial family finding community. Meisner is a wife and mom to two great boys and a Professor in the Department of English at Mount Royal University where she works in the areas of creative writing, drama and gender/ sexuality studies. www.nataliemeisner.com
Content Warnings
Glace Bay Miners' Museum and Consecrated Ground are both intended for mature audiences and deal with difficult subject matter (including death) and employ the use of strong language.
Glace Bay Miners' Museum contains outdated terminology, including an ethnic slur.
Consecrated Ground deals with highly sensitive material regarding race and treatment of racialized people, as well as the death of an infant. Strong language warning.
If you have further concerns or would like to chat about the content of either play, please reach out to kat@easternfronttheatre.com.
Glace Bay Miners' Museum contains outdated terminology, including an ethnic slur.
Consecrated Ground deals with highly sensitive material regarding race and treatment of racialized people, as well as the death of an infant. Strong language warning.
If you have further concerns or would like to chat about the content of either play, please reach out to kat@easternfronttheatre.com.