what a young wife ought to know

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Welcome.

The McManus Stage offers such a unique opportunity: up close encounters with plays that were meant to be experienced in close proximity.

Now more than ever we need to hear the voices of Canadian women: this insightful play from Hannah Moscovitch explores behaviours and attitudes of days gone by, which have an unset-tling resonance today. The play is a stunning articulation of her ability to combine dark subject matter with biting humour. This production comes to us from 2b theatre — a theatre company from the east coast known for its crisp, stylized productions.

One of the joys of this intimate space is to invite guests from afar to bring their stories to us. Welcome to Hannah and 2b’s wonderful imaginations.

dennis garnhum a rtistic director

mcmanus stage, february 6 to 10, 2018

A 2b theatre company production

what a young wife ought to know

By Hannah Moscovitch Directed by Christian Barry

Sophie LIISA REPO-MARTELL Alma REBECCA PARENT Johnny DAVID PATRICK FLEMMING

Lighting Designer LEIGH ANN VARDY Costume Designer LEESA HAMILTON Set Designer ANDREW CULL Stage Manager FIONA JONES Production Manager DANIEL OULTON Director of Production LOUISA ADAMSON Fight Director CASEY HUDECKI

For 2b: Anthony Black and Christian Barry, Artistic Co-Directors; Colleen MacIsaac, Managing Director; Karen Gross, Producer; Rebecca Desmarais, Tour Producer; Louisa Adamson, Resident Production Manager; Shauntay Grant, Playwright-in-Residence; Anna Shepard, Emerging

Artist-in-Residence; Aaron Collier, Designer-in-Residence

2b engages consultants through Strategic Arts Management 2b is represented by touring agent Menno Plukker (Menno Plukker Theatre Agent Inc.) menno@mennoplukker.com

2b theatre company receives operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, and the city of Halifax. 2b theatre company is a member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres

and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association.

What a Young Wife Ought to Know is staged by arrangement with Ian Arnold, Catalyst tcm Inc. www.catalysttcm.com

The development of What a Young Wife Ought to Know has been supported by the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre.

Cover photo by Timothy Richard.

The videotaping or other video or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibited.

government funders

PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTES

“Do publish these letters...they are so amazing.” –Virginia Woolf to Margaret Llewelyn Davis

A few years ago I picked up a copy of Dear Dr. Stopes: Sex in the 1920s, a compilation of the letters sent to the famous British birth control advocate, Dr. Marie Stopes. Men and women, often in dire straights and desperate to find out how to stop having chil-dren, wrote to Dr. Stopes querying about birth control.

The voices of the men and women in these letters were distinct from any-thing I had read before. The letters are explicit about ‘unmentionable’ topics: sex, desire, adultery, childbirth, and birth control. The style of the letters is stark, hilarious, and unflinching, and the vocabulary is amazingly frank and sexual. None of the literature of the time — F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, T.S Eliot, and Virginia Woolf — document or even mention what people’s sex lives were like in the first decades of the twentieth century. To me, the letters felt like a voyeuristic glimpse into what life was like before birth control.

What a Young Wife Ought to Know is loosely inspired by the Dear Doctor Stopes letters, as well as by another book of similar letters published in 1915, titled Maternity: Letters From Working Women and edited by Margaret Llewelyn Davis (another reformer of the day). I have included phrases and turns-of-phrase lifted directly from the letters in the play.

h annah moscovitch

L I IS A R E P O -M A R T E L L A N D DAV I D PAT R ICK F L E M M I NG . P HO T O B Y T I MO T H Y R ICH A R D.

production history

What a Young Wife Ought to Know premiered January 27 to February 8, 2015 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a 2b theatre company production presented by Neptune Theatre. Cast: Liisa Repo-Martell as Sophie, Rebecca Parent as Alma, David Patrick Flemming as Johnny. Production Team: Directed by Christian Barry, Original Lighting Design by Leigh Ann Vardy, Costume Design by Leesa Hamilton, Set Design by Andrew Cull, Stage Managed by Heather Lewis. Design Assistance by Daniel Oulton, Production Management by Louisa Adamson.

T H IS PAG E A N D OP P O SI T E B O T T OM : L I IS A R E P O -M A R T E L L A N D DAV I D PAT R ICK F L E M M I NG . OP P O SI T E T OP: L I IS A R E P O -M A R T E L L A N D R E BE C C A PA R E N T. P HO T O S B Y T I MO T H Y R ICH A R D.

Liisa Repo-Martell SophieLiisa is very happy to be part of bringing What a Young Wife Ought to Know to Ontario. She played Sophie in the premiere production in Halifax in 2015 for 2b theatre company. select theatre credits: The Boy in the Moon (Crow’s Theatre), The Watershed, Seeds (Porte Parole), Other Desert Cities (The Citadel Theatre), Creditors (Coalmine Theatre), Happy Place, Uncle Vanya, Antigone, The Lesson, School for Wives, Top Girls (Soulpepper), Eternal Hydra (Crow’s Theatre), Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear (Stratford Festival).

Rebecca Parent Almafor 2b theatre: Nora Barnacle in Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel. select theatre credits: Six seasons at the Watermark Theatre, including Laura Cheveley in An Ideal Husband, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility; Anne Shirley in Anne and Gilbert (Harbourfront); Lady Nijo in Top Girls (Lunasea). Rebecca recently completed an Ontario tour of Sheatre’s Far From the Heart and Loin du cœur as the Joker. She is co-creator of What to Wear to the Birth of a Nation, a piece commissioned by the Pei Council of the Arts.

David Patrick Flemming JohnnyA Native of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, David has performed across the country in theatre, film and tV. select theatre credits: Orphans (Coal Mine Theatre), A City (Necessary Angel), Bunny (Stratford Festival), What a Young Wife Ought to Know (Neptune/2b theatre company), Cymbeline’s Reign, Two Gents (Shakespeare in the Ruff), Long Day’s Journey into Night (Citadel Theatre), The Apology (Alberta Theatre Projects), Beyond the Cuckoo’s Nest (yPt), Raton Laveur (Fracas Theatre), four seasons with Shakespeare By The Sea, Halifax. select film and tV credits: Suits, Frankie Drake, Conviction, Slasher, Reign, Murdoch Mysteries, The Strain, The Listener, The Corridor.

GUEST ARTISTS

daVid Patrick flemming

liisa rePo-martell

rebecca Parent

Hannah Moscovitch PlaywrightHannah is an acclaimed Canadian playwright. Her work for the stage includes Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, East of Berlin, The Russian Play, Little One, This is War, Infinity, and Bunny. Her plays have been widely produced across Canada, as well as in the United States, Britain, Ireland, Greece, Austria, Germany, Japan, and Australia. She has won multiple awards, including the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, the Toronto Critic’s Award for Best New Canadian Play, both the Scotsman Fringe First and the Herald Angel Awards at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Trillium Book Award (the only playwright to win in the award’s thirty-year history), and the prestigious international Windham-Campbell Prize administered by the Beinecke Library at Yale University. She is a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.

Christian Barry DirectorChristian Barry is an award-winning director and theatre- maker from Halifax, where he is artistic co-director of 2b theatre company. Christian has directed nationally and inter-nationally toured shows, including: Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (Off-Broadway, National Arts Centre, Edinburgh Fringe), The God that Comes (Edinburgh Fringe, PuSh, Tarragon Theatre, Pittsburgh International Fest, Noorderzon), Revisited (WorldStage, Theaterformen, PuSh), and The Russian Play (Canadian Tour). Awards include: Herald Angel, Scotsman Fringe First, One Dora Award for Best Production, Two Theatre ns Merritt Awards for Outstanding Direction (eight nominations) — one for Outstanding New Play, and one for Outstanding Lighting Design. Christian is a two-time nominee for the ns Masterworks award, recipient of the 2008 Halifax Mayor’s award for an Emerging Artist, and the 2006-7 Urjo Kareda residency grant at the Tarragon Theatre.

Leigh Ann Vardy Lighting Designer Leigh Ann Vardy is a lighting designer for theatre and dance. She works in theatres across Canada including the Globe Theatre, Neptune, Buddies in Bad Times, Great Canadian Theatre Company, the National Arts Centre, Soulpepper, Artistic Fraud, Factory Theatre, The Segal Centre, Centaur Theatre, The Stratford Festival, and the Charlottetown Festival, among many others. Leigh Ann has won six Merritt Awards for design and has been nominated for the Siminovitch Prize. Leigh Ann is an instructor and coach at the National Theatre School of Canada.

christian barry

hannah moscoVitch

leigh ann Vardy

Leesa Hamilton Costume DesignerLeesa is a Halifax based Costume Designer. Her most recent design work includes: Let’s Not Beat Each Other to Death (Acc- idental Mechanic), Hardboiled (LoHiFi Productions) and Uncle Oscar’s Experiment (Zuppa Theatre Co.). This is Leesa’s third production with 2b theatre company, having designed East of Berlin in 2009 and When It Rains in 2011. Leesa has been nomi-nated for seven Merritt Awards and was awarded Outstanding Costume Design for Lysistrata (Two Planks and a Passion) and Uncle Oscar’s Experiment (Zuppa Theatre) and Outstanding Set Design for Slowly I Turn (Zuppa Theatre). She is grateful to have been part of the creative team for What a Young Wife Ought to Know — it’s a beautiful and powerful show.

Andrew Cull Set DesignerBorn and raised in Blyth, Ontario, and educated at York University, Andrew freelanced as a technician in Toronto and Montreal before moving east in 2002 to became the Props Master at Neptune Theatre. select set design credits: As Ever (Mulgrave Road Theatre), I, Claudia, Salt Water Moon (Globe Theatre Regina), The Debacle (Zuppa Circus Theatre), East of Berlin (2b Theatre), Splinters (Plutonium Playhouse), Fathers and Sons (Neptune Theatre).

Fiona Jones Stage Managerselect credits: Disgraced (Mirvish/Hope In Hell Theatre/Citadel Theatre); Life, Death And The Blues, Such Creatures, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Beast on the Moon, Sleeproom (Theatre Passe Muraille); Bombers: Reaping the Whirlwind, The Hero of Hunter Street, The Bad Luck Bank Robbers, Wounded Soldiers, Winslows of Derryvore, Queen Marie (4th Line Theatre); Trudeau Stories (Long Black Car); el Retorno/I Return, Chile con Carne, The Intruder (Alameda Theatre); Bitter Girl (Marquis Entertainment); Banana Boys, Trout Stanley, Cold Meat Party, Tiger of Malaya, Home is My Road, Belle, Life Sentences (Factory Theatre); An Acre of Time, The Road to Hell, The Wines of Tuscany, one word, The Retreat (Tarragon Theatre); Death of a Chief (Native Earth); The Danish Play, Smudge (Nightwood Theatre).

andrew cull

leesa hamilton

fiona jones

Daniel Oulton Production ManagerDaniel is a Toronto based, Nova Scotia-raised Stage Manager and Designer. selected credits: sm — two tours of When it Rains (2b); Reflector (Theatre Gargantua); The Dream Catchers (Charlottetown Festival); Let’s Try This Standing, Constellations (Keep Good); The Belle of Amherst (Belle Collective); asm — Miracle on 34th Street, Shrek, Frog and Toad, The Addams Family, A Christmas Story, Into the Woods, A Christmas Carol, Bingo! (Neptune); Canada Rocks!, Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown Festival). Projection Design — Unconscious at the Sistine Chapel (2b); Projection and Sound Design — Let’s Try This Standing (Keep Good), Messenger (HomeFirst/eft).

Louisa Adamson Director of ProductionLouisa is a production manager, event producer and designer, stage manager, collaborator, and technician. Working with 2b theatre, Accidental Mechanics Group, Kazan Co-op, Secret Theatre, Zuppa Theatre Co., Eastern Front Theatre, Neptune Theatre, and The Atlantic Film Festival. General Manager of Spatz Theatre. Recipient of the Scotland Herald “little devil” award 2014 Edinburgh Fringe and 3 Merritt Awards. Founder of Production Resources, Co-Founder of The New Science, and Board Member of the Legacy Centre. Louisa is based in Halifax and often tours across North America and Europe.

louisa adamson

daniel oulton

About 2b theatre company

2b is a Halifax-based, internationally-acclaimed theatre company creating works for the regional, national, and international stages. Artistic co- directors Christian Barry and Anthony Black share a commitment to create, develop, and produce new work that is distinguished by innovation in staging, polish in design, and virtuosity in performance. http://2btheatre.com

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

Adapted by Ursula Rani SarmaBased on the novel

by Khaled HosseiniIn Association with American

Conservatory Theater

March 13 to 31

From the best-selling author of The Kite Runner

“shattering and uplifting

...a searing adaptation”

broadwayworld.com

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