Vern Thiessen

A wealthy businessman wakes up bound and gagged in a utility shed, kidnapped by his own employees--brothers and icemen Joe and Rennie. In the midst of the Great Depression, the brothers' ice harvesting livelihood in Kempenfelt Bay is melting away due to the advent of refrigeration, only to further line the pockets of their employers. Desperate to claim what is rightfully theirs, these honest workers turned reluctant captors will stop at nothing to bring their greedy boss to a final reckoning. ICEMEN by Governor General's Literary Award-winning playwright Vern Thiessen is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that exposes the human cost of capitalism and asks, when the wealthy exploit the working class, who are the real criminals?

Considered a masterpiece of Canadian literature, Margaret Laurence's The Diviners is the compelling story of Morag Gunn, a woman who perseveres through challenge after challenge as she attempts to carve out an authentic life as a writer. The play moves backward and forward through time, taking us to Morag's impoverished childhood in rural Manitoba, her early struggles to establish herself as a female artist, and her present, as she works to finish a novel while navigating a thorny relationship with her teenage daughter, Pique. Inextricably bound with Morag's Scottish settler story is the Metis story of Jules Tonnerre, her friend, lover, and Pique's father. Adapted for the stage by Vern Thiessen with Yvette Nolan, The Diviners illuminates issues of identity, class, and reconciliation.

taples, France, 1918. Nurses Christy, Maggie, and Bab have crossed oceans to care for wounded Canadian soldiers in the Great War. Despite the terrible injuries they must deal with, they manage to stay hopeful as the dangers of the front draw closer to their hospital. As each woman becomes accustomed to her duties and patients, they reveal more personal details to one another and through letters to loved ones. Maggie misses her close friend she lived with back home and worries for their future together. Christy writes to her soldier husband, but she knows there's a difference between the life she should lead with him and the one she wants. Bab longs for what she can't have: her beloved grandpa, a married soldier, a child. Through it all, the three women find friendship, independence, power, and influence in a place where men, once again, are trying to destroy the world.