Mainstage Season

Gut Girls

February 9 –18, 2017

By Sarah Daniels

Foul-mouthed and brash, an unrefined group of young women toil in the Cattle Market slaughterhouses. But not everyone thinks this is an appropriate way for women to earn a living! The gutting sheds are closed down when a well-to-do lady decides to improve their lot in life by training them as maids. The ‘gut girls’ quickly realize that this newfound employment comes at a high price. With sharp dialogue and dazzling humour, Gut Girls cuts right to the heart of women’s struggle for emancipation.

Director Alix Reynolds (MFA Candidate)
Set Designer Laurin Kelsey
Costume Designers Emma Bozoian & Clara Van Horn-Foy
Lighting Designer Eryn Griffith
Sound Designer Michelle Fortier
Stage Manager Brendan Agnew

Dramaturge Sophie Underwood
Assistant Sound Designer Marites Frazer

CAST:

Mary Van Den Bossche Maggie
Caitlin Holm Ellen
Shea O'Connor Kate
Emma Grabinsky Polly
Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes Annie
Perry Burton Harry Dedham / Len
Julien Bruce Jim / Mad Jacko
Gillian McConnell Lady Helena
Chris Driscoll Lord Edwin Tartaden
Kristof Melling Arthur Cuttle-Smythe
Rachel Myers Edna / Priscilla Cuttle-Smythe
Chantal Gallant Emily / Eady / Nora

Gut Girls is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.

Appropriate for ages 14+

Production Resource Partner:


Box Office

Box Office

  • Single ticket sales for only this show begin January 31, 2017
  • Box Office is open Monday to Saturday: 12:00pm - 8:30pm
  • Ticket sales in person, or charge by phone: 250.721.8000
  • Ticket information, prices and policies
  • Performed in the Chief Dan George Theatre
  • Preview Nights: February 7 & 8 ($8.00 tickets only available after 5pm on show night)

About the Director

Alix Reynolds hails from St. John’s, Newfoundland holding a BA in English, and a Diploma in Performance and Communications from Memorial University. In 2012, Alix founded Joint Productions alongside a team of enthusiastic friends. This team continues to be active in the St. John’s theatre community today. Joint Productions credits as director include: Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love, Norm Foster’s Jenny’s House of Joy, a slew of MacIvor plays, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell. As a transplant from the east coast, Alix feels privileged to have called Vancouver Island home for the last two years. At the University of Victoria, MFA projects include three studio plays: MacIvor’s In On It, Maria Irene Fornes’ Mud, and Sarah Kane’s Crave. Alix is thrilled to be working on Sarah Daniels’ Gut Girls with a team of exquisite students as part of her MFA thesis project.

About the Playwright

Born in London in 1957, Sarah Daniels is a contemporary British playwright whose career as a dramatist took off in the early 1980s with three of her plays being produced in rapid succession: Penumbra (Sheffield University), Ma’s Flesh is Grass (Crucible Studio Theatre), and Ripen Our Darkness (Royal Court Theatre). From the outset, Daniel’s plays centered around the stories and struggles of women. Ripen Our Darkness (1981) depicts a woman exploited by her family and ignored by society, Masterpieces (1983) details how pornography breeds violence against women, and The Devil’s Gateway (1983) was inspired by the women’s peace camp at Greenham Common. In 1984, she became an associate writer in residence at the Royal Court Theatre and later was the resident writer at the Albany Empire Theatre in 1989. It was at the Albany that she premiered Gut Girls, a drama about five Victorian era slaughterhouse employees that questioned the destruction of women’s working class culture. Gut Girls went on to become one of her highest earners due to its enduring popularity among acting groups. She continued to write plays while lecturing as a visiting professor in London and abroad. In 1989, Daniels began writing for television and radio broadcasts, working on two popular BBC television series, Grange Hill and Eastenders, and spent the next several decades writing for a wide variety of BBC radio plays and broadcasts. Currently, she is on the board of directors of the Clean Break Theatre Company, a theatre group dedicated to working with women prisoners and ex-offenders that annually commissions female playwrights to create a work about women and crime.

 

Preshow Lecture

Missed the preshow lecture? Click below to listen online to faculty member Fran Gebhard, MFA candidate and director Alix Reynolds, and lighting designer Eryn Griffith talk about the process of collaborating on the development of Gut Girls and the unique challenges and opportunities the show presented.

Listen to the pre-show lecture:


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