Stage Door News
Stage Door News
[MISSISSAUGA ON, November 2013] Theatre Erindale’s 2013-14 “Uppity Women” season continues with the life story of one of the most uppity of all Canadian women, the pioneering feminist Doris Anderson. Rebel Daughter represents the cast’s attempt to translate her popular autobiography to the stage. The story of “A Canadian Icon – a Theatre Erindale World Première” runs at the Erindale Studio Theatre from November 14 to 24.
Doris Anderson’s autobiography Rebel Daughter is a great read. So why was it so challenging to adapt for the stage? “I was eager to try my hands on it,” says director Heinar Piller, a fifty-year veteran of professional acting, producing and artistic directing. “Was I excited? Yes! Was I prepared? No!!” The book is crowded with fascinating and colourful incidents, but includes few primary documents and little or no dialogue. And dialogue is what actors need to speak. “I had never tackled a project which consisted only of a title and a blank page. I had no idea how to tell her story from a stage.”
Enter the student actors. After a summer of studying the book, weeks of brainstorming, debating, drafting and re-drafting culminated in a surprisingly coherent and inventive script that was – in the words of the director – “longer than Wagner’s Ring Cycle”! So then began the painful stage of ruthless chopping, cutting and condensing down to the vivid sequence of theatrical kernels that now constitutes the new two-hour play.
Born illegitimate in 1921 and raised as Hilda Doris Buck, Doris Anderson tried teaching, journalism and advertising in Alberta and Toronto before being hired in 1951 for the promotion office of Chatelaine. Six years later she was the Editor – a position she held for 20 years. It was a volatile but successful era, during which she fought to move the magazine away from its focus on recipes and decorating tips and towards addressing the major women’s issues of the day — with sometimes controversial results. Yet despite receiving the Order of Canada in 1974, she was denied both the top Publisher position at Chatelaine and another logical promotion within McLean Hunter, the editorship of McLean’s. She went on to lecture around the world. In 1979 she was appointed head of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, where she led the successful fight for equality between men and women in Canada’s new Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Rebel Daughter runs November 14-24 at the Erindale Studio Theatre, with evening performances Thursday through Saturday and matinées on Saturdays and on Sunday November 24. Single tickets are still only $10-$15 and parking in Lot 1 or the CCT Garage is $6.00. For tickets and information, call the Erindale Studio Theatre Box Office at 905-569-4369 or www.theatreerindale.com .
REBEL DAUGHTER
Adapted by the Company
from the autobiography of Doris Anderson
under the direction of Heinar Piller
A Canadian icon – a Theatre Erindale World Première!
Preview Nov 14; Opening Nov 15; runs Nov 16 and Nov 21-24, 2013
Thurs 7:30; Fri 8:00; Sat 2:00 & 8:00; Sun Nov 24 2:00
$10.00-$15.00
Erindale Studio Theatre
(Mississauga Road 3 lights north of Dundas)
www.theatreerindale.com or 905-569-4369
2013-11-06
Mississauga: Theatre Erindale presents Doris Anderson's "Rebel Daughter" Nov 14-24