As war looms, the inexorable law of unintended consequences reveals a long-buried secret that tests everyone in the play. Sharp, satiric, full of hot-blooded characters, David Copelin's Bella Donna creates a dramatic world where religious faith takes surprising forms, lies fuel history, and gossip might as well be truth.

David Copelin has worked across the continent as a resident dramaturge in several not-for-profit theatres, as a theatre professor, and as a story consultant for Warner Bros. Pictures in New York. His adaptation of Alfred Jarryâ??s Ubu Roi was staged by Allen MacInnes at the Shaw Festival in 1990. Davidâ??s book Practical Playwriting was published in 1998. From 1999 to 2003, David served as Artistic Director of ScriptLab. Trained at Yale Drama School, he has been a dramaturge for many individual playwrights through his scriptwriting seminars in Toronto and at Brock University. His short plays Mind over Matter, Vandals, Quite Contrary, and A Clean Breast have been produced in various venues. David is a voting member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Playwrights Guild of Canada. He is also a former chair of the Public Lending Right Commission in Ottawa. A founding member and former president of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, David is currently writing The Rabbi of Ragged Ass Road, a comic fantasy set in Yellowknife. He lives in Toronto.

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"One part Shakespearean intrigue, one part slapstick farce, Bella Donna marries elaborate characters, high drama and an aggressive sense of humour to create an altogether excellent piece of theatre. The cracking story of courtly intrigue in 16th-century Italy employs mistaken identity, cross-dressing, Oedipal impulses and heretical humour, and the sharp dramatic turns surrounding the rule of the excommunicated Borgia family are like free-based thespian crack for audiences. One of the sparkling jewels of this year's Fringe." —Andrew Braithwaite, eye Weekly