About the Play:

The Elmwood Visitation is a full-length comedic drama by Carolyn Gray. The author calls to the stage seductive mediums, Houdini's Water Torture Chamber, séances, grifters and the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes books in her hysterical historically based tale set in 1923, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came to Winnipeg to take part in a seance.

The Elmwood Visitation channels the spirits of Winnipeg's paranormal past. In 1923 a visitation occurred. Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a staunch spiritualist, and the world's most famous medium, Margery Crandon, both travelled to Winnipeg to join the city's famous Hamilton Circle. They called on the Elmwood home of leader of the circle, Doctor Thomas Glendenning Hamilton: one time President of the Manitoba Medical Association, Member of the Legislative Assembly, and Spirit Photographer. What happened the night they joined hands around the séance circle would haunt them the rest of their lives. Who was this Hamilton? Did he invent the fire drill? Is Winnipeg home to the largest collection of paranormal exhibits? The Elmwood Visitation explores Winnipeg's history in the 1920s as a renowned centre for psychic research.

The Elmwood Visitation premiered in 2007 at the Contemporary Dancers Studio Theatre staged by Theatre Projects Manitoba in Winnipeg, and won the 2008 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"Theatre this good puts the truth in the oft-repeated assertion that Winnipeg's arts scene is world-class. In its setting and inspiration, The Elmwood Visitation is a bona fide Manitoban work, yet it explores themes grand enough to engage almost any theatre-going audience." — Uniter

"You know how often the turning down this street or that, the accepting or rejecting of an invitation may deflect the whole current of our lives into some other channel." — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

About the Playwright:

Carolyn Gray is a Canadian playwright, director, designer, actor, educator, and puppeteer. She is also a founding member of Adhere and Deny Object Puppet Theatre. She won the Manitoba Day Award for Excellence in Archival Research for her play The Elmwood Visitation and the John Hirsch Most Promising Manitoba Writer award. She received a B.A. from the University of Winnipeg, and also studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver and the Pratt Institute of Art and Design in Brooklyn, New York.