 | In honour of tomorrows opening night in Windsor, I thought I'd share my program note with everyone a day early. |
Welcome to another season with The Edge Productions. This is our ninth year in operation and our eighth full season!
When our company was founded in 2010, it had a simple goal - tell stories we find compelling, make bold choices, work on pieces we care about and elevate voices that often get dismissed. We dreamt of a world where taboo subjects were normalized, risky shows were just shows and our audiences would be eclectic and from all walks of life. It sounds pretentious and likely seems unreasonable but this seemingly snooty and insane dream has taken us from contemporary plays to reinterpreted classical text but in 2019 we are getting back to where The Edge started… the musical. Of the 4 shows we’re producing this year only one, The Clockmaker by Stephen Massicotte, is a play. The other three are driven by music.
I don’t know if 7 seasons of nearly all plays left me missing the ability of the musical to exist in a heightened reality of beauty, melody and emotional honesty or if I suddenly found that the world was too difficult to exist in without a little harmony and gorgeous music supporting the emotional weight we’ve all been feeling, maybe it’s both, but truth-seeking musicals are back at The Edge Productions.
We start our season with Pregnancy Pact (Book & Lyrics by Gordon Leary & Music by Julia Meinwald). It is hard hitting, funny and emotional… it also is focused on a group of teenage girls who choose to get pregnant between the ages of 15 and 17. It was inspired by the media craze surrounding the rumoured Gloucester Pregnancy Pact. In 2008 approximately 18 high school girls got pregnant at the same school. The adults pleaded that, “the girls made a pregnancy pact” while the girls in question say they hadn’t done anything of the kind and the media created such a circus that the town is still haunted by it today.
This piece, though inspired by the 2008 story, is an examination of what motivates a teenager to choose this kind of commitment or disruption, it’s an examination of friendship and an examination of consequences to young, formative choices. In a world that values grown over young voices and in a world in which we don’t tend to listen to teenagers at all, this is a story entirely told by the teenagers who make it up. With no adult characters Pregnancy Pact allows us deep and unfiltered access to the psyche of these teens.
We hope you find something in Pregnancy Pact, the way every single one of us has and we hope you stick with us for the rest of the season. Our new collaboration with Toronto-based company Gangway! Theatre Co is an incredible step towards our newest goal of making theatre in Canada less insular and we can’t wait for our next co-production in the fall.
Check out our full season here!
Sincerely & With Love,
Miriam Goldstein
Artistic Director
When our company was founded in 2010, it had a simple goal - tell stories we find compelling, make bold choices, work on pieces we care about and elevate voices that often get dismissed. We dreamt of a world where taboo subjects were normalized, risky shows were just shows and our audiences would be eclectic and from all walks of life. It sounds pretentious and likely seems unreasonable but this seemingly snooty and insane dream has taken us from contemporary plays to reinterpreted classical text but in 2019 we are getting back to where The Edge started… the musical. Of the 4 shows we’re producing this year only one, The Clockmaker by Stephen Massicotte, is a play. The other three are driven by music.
I don’t know if 7 seasons of nearly all plays left me missing the ability of the musical to exist in a heightened reality of beauty, melody and emotional honesty or if I suddenly found that the world was too difficult to exist in without a little harmony and gorgeous music supporting the emotional weight we’ve all been feeling, maybe it’s both, but truth-seeking musicals are back at The Edge Productions.
We start our season with Pregnancy Pact (Book & Lyrics by Gordon Leary & Music by Julia Meinwald). It is hard hitting, funny and emotional… it also is focused on a group of teenage girls who choose to get pregnant between the ages of 15 and 17. It was inspired by the media craze surrounding the rumoured Gloucester Pregnancy Pact. In 2008 approximately 18 high school girls got pregnant at the same school. The adults pleaded that, “the girls made a pregnancy pact” while the girls in question say they hadn’t done anything of the kind and the media created such a circus that the town is still haunted by it today.
This piece, though inspired by the 2008 story, is an examination of what motivates a teenager to choose this kind of commitment or disruption, it’s an examination of friendship and an examination of consequences to young, formative choices. In a world that values grown over young voices and in a world in which we don’t tend to listen to teenagers at all, this is a story entirely told by the teenagers who make it up. With no adult characters Pregnancy Pact allows us deep and unfiltered access to the psyche of these teens.
We hope you find something in Pregnancy Pact, the way every single one of us has and we hope you stick with us for the rest of the season. Our new collaboration with Toronto-based company Gangway! Theatre Co is an incredible step towards our newest goal of making theatre in Canada less insular and we can’t wait for our next co-production in the fall.
Check out our full season here!
Sincerely & With Love,
Miriam Goldstein
Artistic Director
And if you've read this whole note, you've earned this frightening picture of me from 2008! |  |
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