Trudy J. Morgan-Cole
Plays
All my life, I've written prose fiction while being in love with live theatre. I'm not an actor; I've been a high school drama coach and teacher, written "skits" for school and church youth group performances, but always felt I couldn't "write a real play." I tried a few times, but could never get anything beyond the first couple of pages. So I convinced myself I was a novelist, nothing else, and that's all I would ever be.
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But there was something about turning 50 that, for me at least, brought home the fact that life really is short, and if you want to try things, you've gotta go out and make or find those opportunities. That was why, a few years after that milestone birthday, I found myself taking a semester off teaching to concentrate on writing. And during that semester, one of the things I did was to take a beginning play-writing class from Robert Chafe, who I consider to be Newfoundland's greatest living playwright (probably greatest even if you include dead ones, honestly).
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I learned so much from that class, and it led to me and two friends, Christine Hennebury and Lori Savory, putting together a play of three mini-scenes called "Revelations: Not That Kind," that was staged during the St. John's Short Play Festival in September 2019.
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That experience was not only tremendous fun; it also got me past the "I can't write a play" mental block. Though I still feel very much like a novice in the world of playwrights, I have written three full-length plays. One is a practice exercise that will probably never see the light of day, but here are the details on the other two!
The Mirror
The Mirror, my first full-length staged play, was commissioned by Persistence Theatre Company, a local feminist theatre company, as part of their "Votes for Women 100" project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of (property-owning) women in St. John's winning the right to vote. It was staged at the LSPU hall in St. John's in October 2021, directed by Jenn Deon and starring Alison Woolridge and Brian Marler as pioneering Newfoundland suffragists Armine Nutting Gosling and her husband, St. John's mayor Gilbert Gosling, along with a great supporting cast. You can read a little about that production here.
Both Persistence Theatre Company and I would love for The Mirror to be staged again, ideally in 2025 as part of the commemoration of the (most) Newfoundland women earning the right to vote in 1925. If that becomes a reality, I'll be posting about it here!
Is This the Hill You
Wish You'd Died On?
Is This the Hill You Wish You'd Died On? is a play I've been working on for several years. It's a fictional piece that draws on several real-life stories for its inspiration, including the stories of many of my own ancestors. Apart from my novel Prone to Wander, it's the most personal thing I've ever written.
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Once again, I owe a lot to the powerhouse women of Persistence Theatre Company. This play received a staged reading as part of their Year of the Arts Women's Play Festival in September 2024, under the direction of Sharon King-Campbell with seven gifted women reading the roles.
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Now I'm back to the drafting stage, writing a new revision based on what I learned from that staged reading process. A play with seven actors is a big project to bring to the stage, so I don't know when/if/how there will be a full production of this play, but I really want that to happen and I will absolutely let you know when there's news about it!
