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Explores a radicalized feminist agenda in the latter part of the 20th century. Cast of 16 women and 3 men.
A propos de l'auteur
Leanna Brodie is a Montréal-based actor, playwright, librettist, and translator whose work is celebrated across Canada and internationally. Her original plays-including
The Vic,
For Home and Country,
The Book of Esther, and
Schoolhouse-are published by Talonbooks and have been performed widely in Canada and the United States. Her latest play,
Salesman in China, co-written with Jovanni Sy, premiered at the Stratford Festival in 2024 and transferred to the National Arts Centre in 2025.
Brodie's libretti include
Ulla's Odyssey (with Anthony Young), which toured the UK with OperaUpClose and won both the Flourish Prize (UK) and the Opera Factory New Work Competition (NZ);
The Translator (David Ogborn);
she sees her lover in the light of morning (Craig Galbraith); and
The Angle of Reflection (Anthony Young, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra).
As a translator, she has brought to English the works of many leading Québécois and Franco-Canadian playwrights, including Rébecca Déraspe (
You Are Happy,
I Am William,
Gametes,
Les Glaces), David Paquet (
Wildfire,
The Weight of Ants,
The Shoe), Catherine Léger (
Opium_37,
I Lost My Husband!,
Home Deliveries), and Hélène Ducharme (
Baobab). Her translations have been produced across North America and internationally, with several published by Playwrights Canada Press and Scirocco Drama.
Brodie has held residencies at the Blyth Festival, 4th Line Theatre, Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Gateway Theatre, and Playwrights Theatre Centre. She has also taught playwriting at the University of British Columbia and Concordia University.
Leanna Brodie
Her recent accolades include the 2024 Québec Writers' Federation Award for Best New Play (shared with Jovanni Sy) for
Salesman in China, the 2023 PGC Tom Hendry Award for Best New Play (shared with David Paquet) for her translation of
The Weight of Ants, and the 2022 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play (shared with David Paquet) for her translation of
Wildfire.
Résumé
Founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario in 1897, the Women’s Institute played three key roles which helped lay the foundations of the feminist movement. It provided a means for the continuing education of rural women, often not schooled beyond the elementary level, at first in practical areas of homemaking, home nursing and food preparation and preservation, then later in professional areas, providing much needed information such as how a woman could establish and protect her legal rights to property. Very early on, Women’s Institute members also began to use their local branches as a forum to lobby for social change, including public health reforms, medical and dental inspections in rural schools, and in some cases even to further the cause of female suffrage. Finally, the Women’s Institute also created an avenue for an evolving female sociability and a context for the evolution of a gender-based identity politics. From their humble beginnings, Women’s Institutes spread widely throughout Ontario, across Canada and around the world. At their height of popularity, Ontario could boast 1,449 branches with more than 47,000 members; Canadian membership climbed to 87,000 by 1953.
For Home and Country dramatizes the generational conflict created by the rise of an urban and radicalized feminist agenda in the latter part of the 20th century and its head-on collision with its much more conservative, rural roots in the Women’s Institute. It is also Leanna Brodie’s homage to the techniques of Canadian populist theatre—grounded in the work of Theatre Passe Muraille—and its ability to tell stories about the power and dignity of ordinary lives that had not previously been considered capable or worthy of being told.
