Regina Little Theatre - Blood Relations

Past performances: Blood Relations

Blood Relations
By Sharon Pollock

Directed by Ken Spencer
Show dates: March 24-27, 2004

Cast & Production Team
Synopsis
About the playwright
Production photos

Cast		Production Team
Actor	Role	Team Member	Role
Amy Ozog	The Actress	Ken Spencer	Director
Bonnie Senger	Miss Lizzie	Attrina Blythe	Stage Manager
Patrick Cherneski	Counsel for the Defense	Allene Chernick	ASM * /Crew
Dwayne Walter	Harry Wingate	Phoebe Taillon	ASM/Crew
Andrea McNeil	Emma Borden	Pat Wilson	Set Design & Dec
Jean Taylor	Mrs. Abby Borden	Melissa Mark	Makeup & Hair
John Haas	Mr. Andrew Borden	Jean Taylor	Costumes
James Park	Dr. Patrick	Annetta Kuntz	Costumes
		Sherilyn Snider Sawatzky	Hair Stylist
		Set Design & Dec	Pat Wilson
		Shari Petty	Makeup
		Melissa Mark	Hair Design
		James Trettwer	Sound & Music
		Lighting	James McCullough
		Fred Gallagher	Set Construction
		Rick Harvey	Set Construction
		Rod McLeod	Set Construction
		Barry Uncles	Set Construction
		Harold Woodward	Set Construction

* ASM - Assistant Stage Manager

Synopsis of play
On a cool, rainy Sunday in the Fall of 1904, an actress from Boston is visiting at the home of her friend, Miss Lizzie Borden. Twelve years earlier, Miss Lizzie was accused and tried for the bloody axe murders of her stop mother and father. Those events of 1892 were a media sensation and made front page news for more than a year as lurid details of the crimes were investigagd and the trail proceeded. Miss Lizzie was acquitted of the crime, after which she and her older sister Emma lived together in their hometown. Despite her acquittal, common belief was that Miss Lizzie was actually guilty, so she remainded a social outcast in her hometown for the rest of her days.

Twelve years after the murders, Miss Lizzie took up with an actress from Boston. In the play, The Actress tries to determine whether or not Miss Lizzie "did it" or not. Instead of answering The Actress, Miss Lizzie sets up a game of imagination and improvisation in which The Actress will take on the role of the younger Lizzie and will re-enact the events leading up to the grisly murders on that stifling August morning of 1892. As The Actress explores the role and the events, she begins to understand the nearly unbearable stresses that the younger Lizzie must have been going through. Did she? With the help of Miss Lizzie painting the background The Actress may find out.

About the playwright
Sharon Pollock was born in 1936 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and attended the University of new Brunswick. She worked at the Playhouse Theatre in Fredericton at various jobs, including some acting, them moved to Calgary in 1966. She toured with the Prairie Players in 1966, and won a Dominion Drama Festival award for her performance in Ann Jellico's The Knack.

Her first play, A Compulsory Option , won an Alberta Culture playwriting competition in 1971. Plays that followed included Walsh in 1973 (produced at the Stratford Festival), And Out Goes You? In 1975, and The Komagata Maru Incident in 1976. Pollock played Lizzie in her next play, My Name is Lisbeth , when this short play was produced at Douglas College, Surrey, B.C. in 1976. After One Tiger to a Hill premiered at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton in 1980, she rewrote My Name is Lisbeth as a full-length play called Blood Relations , which premiered at Edmonton's Theatre 3 in 1980 and went on to win the Governor General's Award for English drama in 1981.

She continues to write play, including Generations and Whiskey Six Cadenza . She has been a teacher, a writer in residence, and in 1998 became president of the Alberta Playwrights' Network. She continues to win awards for her plays, and to encourage new playwrights.

Production photos

John Haas & Dwayne Walter.

Dwayne Walter, Amy Ozog and James Park.

Patrick Cherneski, Bonnie Senger and Amy Ozog.

Andrea McNeil and Jean Taylor.

Amy Ozog and John Haas. Background: Bonnie Senger.

John Haas, Dwayne Walter amd Jean Taylor.