Women’s Work Festival Roundup!
20 years of theatre and creative work
March 1-8, 2026 | LSPU Hall
By Rhea Rollmann
This year marked the 20th year of the Women’s Work Festival (WWF)—one of the province’s, (and country’s) most vibrant theatre festivals—and organizers put off a week full of events worthy of the occasion. Founded in 2006, WWF has subsequently grown into a celebrated showcase for women and gender-diverse creators from across this country and beyond. With panels, public readings, workshops, and a variety of informal gathering spaces, this year’s Festival brought together dozens of playwrights, actors, and theatre aficionados from across Canada. Organizers also engaged the local musical community, showcasing a range of talented local musicians.
An event on the Festival’s first day underscored the ongoing significance of theatre, and the ways in which one of the oldest and most analog forms of entertainment remains the most important, in spite of the hype which
surrounds newer digital media. Across the Boards: A National Dialogue on Gender & Theatre brought together festival organizers from around the country in a bracing discussion about theatre, feminism, and the social impact and potential of drama.
One of the strong takeaways from the conversation was that theatre is thriving, with burgeoning interest from professionals and public alike. The success of smaller, equity-focused festivals and opportunities attest to that. In BC, Ruby Slippers Theatre’s Advance Theatre Festival stages five plays by equity-deserving artists over five days and received over a hundred applications for the spots; the SkirtsAfire Festival in Edmonton has ballooned from its inaugural 4-day festival in 2012 to a 10-day festival this year. This year the local Women’s Work Festival received over 60 submissions from all over the country, which for an NL-based festival is impressive, observed Artistic Director Ana Pitol. While the festival showcases works-in-progress rather than completed productions, Pitol noted that of the more than 80 scripts WWF has showcased since its creation, over half have gone on to become full productions.
This speaks to the strong commitments festival producers make to participating playwrights – many of them young or emerging talents from equity-seeking groups. Dramaturgy, networking, building relationships and support systems to sustain arts workers post-festival all comprise part of the commitment these producers make to participants, and the outcomes help bolster the theatre scene as a whole.
Talking beyond the technical aspects of their work, panel participants shared lofty reflections about the future of their practice. “Can we change the world through theatre?” panelists were asked, and the response was a resounding yes. Theatre is more important than ever in today’s era of social media, asserted Women At Play(s) Artistic Director Marianne Sawchuk. “We need to fight like mad to get people into the theatre to experience the sense of community it offers,” she said.
Fellow Women At Play(s) organizer Trina Moyan concurred.
“What’s inside a story is not just a story,” she said. “It’s your code of ethics, it’s everything that is meant to be passed on […] it’s the power and essence of how we’re meant to move through the world. It’s our foundational essence.” Moyen spoke to her own roots within an Indigenous, matriarchal, storytelling culture.
Storytelling is how all political and social movements start, emphasized Ruby Slippers Theatre’s Diane Brown. And theatre is about creating space for conversations that are difficult to have in the ‘real’ world, and which often inspire action, observed Skirts Afire’s Amanda Goldberg. The care, compassion, vulnerability and transformation that occurs within theatre renders it “a community like no other industry,” she said.
Panelists also discussed how they can better support marginalized folks within the industry. Pitol summed up the situation many face, wherein they’re told marginalized members are welcome, “but there’s no actual support, no inclusion.”
Brown emphasized that her team makes efforts to connect with the broader communities around which their plays are centred. That way the communities become part of the process, and stakeholders of a sort in the production. She emphasized that producers need to be connecting with local and cultural communities outside of their own arts-based, theatrical ones.
Goldberg emphasized the importance of diversity groups seeing themselves reflected in the leadership of theatrical organizations, and being “welcomed and cared for by people who understand their experiences.”
Nightwood Theatre’s Andrea Donaldson pointed out that diversity needs to exist at all levels of an arts organization, particularly in hiring and selection committees. Moyen emphasized that Indigenous people are living on or below the poverty line, and said that fact is embedded in all of her decision-making processes. This sort of material reality has a range of associated impacts, and it’s something she encouraged other producers to keep in mind too. And Pitol emphasized the importance of ensuring festival producers’ commitments to playwrights and scripts don’t end at the conclusion of a reading or a festival, but that they work to ensure the piece goes on to become a full production.
The panel ended with reflections on their collective responsibilities as feminist theatre producers in 2026.
“Our biggest responsibility is to tell stories other people would shy away from,” said Sawchuk, reflecting on productions she’s been involved with that focused on topics like childhood sexual abuse and femicide. “We can’t shy away from material because we’re worried about what people will think of it.”
Photo by Ashley Harding, courtesy of the Women’s Work Festival
Among the Festival highlights are the evening readings: public presentations of works in progress followed by audience discussion and input. I attended two of these, both of them reflecting the astonishing calibre of talent WWF has attracted.
I Don’t Feel Pretty / Chu Pas Cute was a bilingual reading performed by the playwright herself, Nancy Kenny. For a solid hour Kenny held the audience rapt, punctuated by outbursts of uproarious laughter and cheers. Described as “absurdist dark comedy taking place inside the fractured mind of an alcoholic on a bender” that “explores identity, addiction, isolation, motherhood, and intergenerational pain,” the piece hit with all the power of a feral feminist freight train.
Kenny’s one-person show journeyed through the entire emotional spectrum: petulance, excitement, anger, drunken hyper enthusiasm. Her range of emotive presentation was a sheer wonder to behold; she reset each ‘act’ with imaginary subtitles drawn in the air. The piece was presented predominantly in English, but punctuated with extended French outbursts. In the discussion after, it was noted this represented her regressing to her childhood voice of French during moments of heightened emotional tension—“Your brain latches onto what’s known,” she explained. “The piece is not a linear narrative, and bilingualism supports the emotional arc.”
The alternation of languages—like the alternation of mood and emotion—allowed her to control and shift the pacing of the piece. The language changes also served as a reminder that communication is ultimately about rhythm, and that it’s often possible to follow the flow of what’s being communicated regardless of language or mood; at some point intonation, tone and body language transcend spoken idioms. Kenny’s use of language in the piece was both whimsical and wise; humorous and raw in the moment but sparking more profound reflections in the performance’s wake.
How Kenny maintained the pace as a solo performer for a solid hour I do not know, but her delivery was superb and mesmerizing. In the discussion which followed, she explained that as the work has developed, she has explored it both as a solo as well as a choral piece featuring multiple women. Each iteration, with varying numbers of performers, brings different themes to the fore, she explained.
Another discussion point raised by audience members was the question of how marketable bilingual art really is in this country. Kenny, a native New Brunswicker whose first language is French, explained that truly bilingual populations “never see ourselves represented on the stage,” something her deft delivery of the two languages aims to change.
The rapid-fire delivery of drunken tirades created space for her to navigate a broad range of themes. “There’s things in this play that you can’t say under patriarchy,” one audience member opined. Kenny concurred, underscoring one of the Festival’s recurring themes that it is just such material which theatre is most capable of presenting in an authentic way. “If many of us are thinking these things and wanting to say these things and they’re too afraid to, then I will say these things,” Kelly stated. “As an actor, as a creator, I can say these things. And that means everything.
“Being an artist is a calling, it should 100 percent be funded and supported because it opens the door to conversations like these,” responded another audience member. “Art is healthcare.”
Friday night’s reading featured Jamie Merrigan’s To Our Roots, read by local actors Rachel Van Vliet and Bernadine Stapleton. The piece—rooted in Merrigan’s own experience—centres on a young trans non-binary Newfoundlander, Aster (Van Vliet), and their relationship with their grandmother, Nanny Hilda (Stapleton).
Before considering the script itself, it must first be stated that Bernadine Stapleton is a national treasure. As someone who grew up watching Stapleton perform a variety of roles over the years, it’s thrilling to watch her continue to expand her range. The province’s acting pool is full of talent, but Stapleton brings a rich, thoughtful delivery to the roles she takes. This role was a case in point.
Photo by Ashley Harding, courtesy of the Women’s Work Festival
Eccentric, exuberant nans are a dime a dozen in NL theatre; since the days of Tommy Sexton and Codco (and earlier) they’ve been invoked as a source of comic relief, accompanied by complex evocations of nostalgia. Stapleton’s presentation was more thoughtful, presenting Nanny Hilda as a living, learning creature. She injected moments of care, doubt and self-correction to the ebullient ‘listen-to-your-nan!’ archetype. Even though it was just a reading, her presentation of Nanny Hilda’s character was pure magic to watch; she brought the avatar of Newfoundland nanhood to life.
Van Vliet also warmed into the role as the piece progressed, and as the emotional climax built the two had the audience rapt; I doubt there was a dry eye by the end of the piece. In the discussion which followed, Stapleton reflected on the chemistry between the two actors, making the important point that they discussed their engagement beforehand, with Stapleton seeking Van Vliet’s consent for more intimate moments involving touch or physical contact.
Merrigan was in the audience, as was their nan who inspired the work, and all four took to the stage after the performance as dramaturge Lara Lewis (Associate Artistic Director of the Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre) facilitated a broad and thoughtful conversation with the audience. Merrigan spoke powerfully to their own experience, which is reflected in the challenges the central character faces as a trans non-binary person trying to establish an acting career. Merrigan delayed their own transition because of worries over how it would impact their career, and shared stories about the different treatment they encountered in theatre spaces —including the roles they were offered—after they came out. They spoke passionately about the importance of making space for actors of all genders to take on all sorts of roles, observing that gender itself is perhaps the greatest performance of them all.
Much of the discussion centred around the challenges faced by trans people in the theatre industry. Merrigan’s nan’s support was really important, they said, and helped inspire them to want to write a play that deviated from the norm wherein queer peoples’ family members are bigots and villains. Portrayals of positive, supportive families are less common “and I wanted to show that it is possible,” Merrigan explained.
Watching different actors, of different genders, take the role of Aster over the years has provided Merrigan a broader perspective on the piece, they said. “It’s been the hardest thing I’ve written because it’s so personal [….]It’s been hard because I’ve had to say a lot of things people don’t like to hear.”
These moving moments reflect just a few of the powerful, transformative spaces WWF facilitated at this year’s Festival. As organizers look toward the next 20 years, it is clear that theatre will continue to be more important than ever.
Rhea Rollmann is an award-winning journalist, writer and audio producer based in St. John’s, NL, and is the author of A Queer History of Newfoundland (Engen Books, 2023).