Annie Runningbird doesn’t have time for the games boys want her to play. She’s aging out of foster care on her next birthday. The system has decided she is an adult, so Annie must make adult decisions. Where will she live? How will she make money? Demanding grown-up choices preoccupy the young girl’s mind as she navigates relationships with boys and men in her company. Does she like Isaac, a cute yet naive boy she met at the mall food court? Can she trust Louis, her older and increasingly overbearing foster care worker? Who can Annie depend on in her ever-shifting world? This intel is important. Because Annie needs to win the very real game she’s playing. She must save herself to save the day.

This daring new play from Newfoundland playwright Megan Gail Coles showcases a bold and refreshing approach to theatre for young audiences. Coles deftly interweaves Canada’s colonial history with online gaming as our Indigenous protagonist struggles to understand and reconcile her past, present and future.

Megan Gail Coles is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the University of British Columbia. She is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Poverty Cove Theatre Company, for which she has written numerous award-winning plays. Her debut short fiction collection, Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome, won the BMO Winterset Award, the ReLit Award, and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, and it earned her the Writers’ Trust of Canada 5×5 Prize. Her debut novel, Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a contender for CBC Canada Reads, and it won the BMO Winterset Award. Originally from Savage Cove on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland/ Ktaqmkuk, Megan lives in St. John’s, where she is the Executive Director of Riddle Fence and a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University.

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