In an adaptation of the classic Canadian novel, this epic play follows three generations of a Cape Breton Island family in a tale of forbidden love, inescapable bonds, and devastating betrayals, all while harbouring secrets that threaten to shatter the family entirely.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young piano tuner named James Piper and thirteen-year-old Materia Mahmoud fall into a whirlwind romance. As their family grows, the couple is strained by dark revelations that lead to dangerous consequences. Their headstrong daughters Kathleen, Frances, Mercedes, and Lily grow up haunted but fiercely connected in ways they must learn to fully understand. A richly layered story by turns both heartbreaking and joyous, Fall On Your Knees is a vivid portrayal of love, desire, and the quest for truth and redemption.

Alisa Palmer is an award-winning theatre director, playwright, and producer and has developed, premiered, and toured provocative and award-winning theatre creations for over twenty-five years. Her work crosses genres, including the classics, contemporary plays, collaborative creations, musicals, and operas and is characterized by vivid performances, a bold use of music, and a passionate commitment to the body politic. She is the recipient of numerous awards both in Canada and internationally, including multiple Dora Mavor Moore Awards, two Floyd S. Chalmers Awards, the Robert Merritt Award, and a Harold Award for her contribution to independent theatre. She is a three-time finalist for the Siminovitch Prize and a recipient of the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. She was the artistic director of Nightwood Theatre, where she oversaw the commissioning and development of landmark plays including Harlem Duet by Djanet Sears and Smudge by Alex Bulmer, the first professional play by a blind playwright. She has spent eight seasons at the Shaw Festival and three seasons at the Stratford Festival, where she directed the world premiere of Hamlet-911 by Ann-Marie MacDonald, developed through Vita Brevis Arts. Ms. Palmer was Executive Artistic Director of the National Theatre School of Canada and Director of the Acting and Artist Residency Programs between 2013 and 2024, where she led the revitalization of the English Section through the creation of new programming and pedagogy focused on accessibility, equity, and, sustainability of artistic practices, for which she was honoured with Les prix Mosaïque from the Union des artistes. Ms. Palmer is Artistic Producer and Founder of Vita Brevis Arts. She is married to author Ann-Marie MacDonald, with whom she has two children.

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Hannah Moscovitch is an acclaimed playwright, librettist and TV writer. Her work for the stage includes East of Berlin, This Is War, Little One, The Russian Play, Infinity and What a Young Wife Ought to Know. Her plays have been widely produced across Canada, as well as in the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Greece, Austria, Australia and Japan. Hannah’s music-theatre hybrid, Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (co-created with Christian Barry and Ben Caplan) has toured internationally, garnering a New York Times Critics’ Pick and over fifty four- and five-star reviews. Hannah’s operas with Lembit Beecher, Sky on Swings and I have no stories to tell you, have been produced at Gotham Chamber Opera / the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Opera Philadelphia. She has been honoured with numerous accolades, including multiple Dora Mavor Moore Awards, Toronto Theatre Critics Awards, Fringe First and Herald Angels Awards, the Trillium Book Award, the Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award and the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize. She has also been nominated for a Drama Desk Award, the international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and twice for the Siminovitch Prize. Recently, Hannah debuted her first confessional work for the stage, Secret Life of a Mother (co-created with Maev Beaty, Ann-Marie Kerr and Marinda De Beer) at the Theatre Centre in Toronto. Hannah is a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto and lives in Halifax.

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Ann-Marie MacDonald is an award-winning novelist, playwright, actor, and broadcast host. Her writing for the stage includes the plays Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), Belle Moral: A Natural History, and Hamlet-911, along with the libretto for the chamber opera Nigredo Hotel, and book and lyrics for the musical Anything That Moves. She is the author of the bestselling novels Fall On Your Knees, The Way the Crow Flies, and Adult Onset. Ann-Marie is a graduate of the acting program of the National Theatre School of Canada. In 2018 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of her contribution to the arts and her LGBTQ2SI+ activism. She is married to theatre director Alisa Palmer, with whom she has two children.

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