Award-winning playwright Erin Shields has crafted three thought-provoking plays that centre on the inner lives of women, offering space for those who dare to listen.

An eviscerating satire of gender roles in popular culture, Beautiful Man imagines a world in which women are the subjects and men the objects. As three women dissect the latest Hollywood blockbuster, narrative after narrative of strong female characters fold into each other, fusing into a brutally recognizable story.

In Unit B-1717, a woman is trying to clean out her storage locker and say goodbye to the past, but an overwhelming feeling of dread forces her to confront the way she has historically subjugated herself to the needs of others.

In And then there was you, a mother addresses her child as they both visit milestones that offered them each independence, and in the process explores how the profound connection between mother and child evolves.

Erin Shields' profile page

Andrea Donaldson has directed award-winning productions for theatres across Canada, including Soulpepper, Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Theatre Direct, the Great Canadian Theatre Company, the Festival Players of Prince Edward County, the National Theatre School, SummerWorks, the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare in the Ruff, Espace René-Provost, the Toronto Fringe, Red Sky Performance, and Nightwood Theatre. For two decades Donaldson has played a pivotal role in fostering new feminist works for the stage as a freelance director/dramaturge, in her role as Tarragon’s Associate Artistic Director, and at Nightwood Theatre as Program Director of Write from the Hip and now as Artistic Director.

Andrea Donaldson's profile page

• Short-listed, QWF Playwriting Prize

“A brilliant, brutal reminder of the realities of being a woman in a society that values beauty and compliance.”

Samantha Edwards, NOW Magazine

“There’s a great deal of rage underlying [Beautiful Man], but also many humorous elements, and so many things to admire about Shields’s acute observations and inversions of expectation . . . Every new play from her is a challenge, and a treat.”

Karen Fricker, Toronto Star