About the Play:

Homechild is a full-length drama by Joan MacLeod. Between the mid-1800s and the mid-1900s more than 80,000 children were brought to Canada in officially sanctioned child migration programs. Separated forever from their poverty-stricken families, they were called "home children." The story of Canada's "dirty" secret revolves around retired dairy farmer, Alistair MacEachern. Now in his 80s, he was brought to Canada as a "homechild" in 1922. For 70 years he has silently longed for the sister he left behind in Scotland.

Homechild is about family secrets and about the many forms of love, longing and aspiration they conceal. And it's about loss. It takes a dirty little secret from a dark corner of Canada's past and dramatizes its tragic impact through the generations of one family. Between 1869 and the early 1930s, almost 100,000 children were shipped to Canada, Australia and New Zealand from Great Britain. While some were treated well, many were terribly abused – both physically and mentally. At the very least, these young people suffered from being abruptly torn from their parents and siblings. It's estimated that one out of every 12 Canadians is a descendant of a "homechild". But because many of these youngsters were ashamed of their past, most people know little or nothing about their parent or grandparent's background. Homechild tells the fictitious tale of an old man, Alistair, who still suffers from emotional scars as a homechild separated from his little sister and packed off to Ontario. Alistair is a retired farmer who lives with his sister-in-law Flora and son Ewan on their family homestead. No longer a profitable or even a viable enterprise, the fields have long been leased out and the house is in serious disrepair. The scattered remnants of the family are vainly trying to hold it together and not doing a very good job of it. Lorna, Alistair's daughter, comes to visit for the first time since her marriage failed, for a shaky reunion that soon turns acrimonious. Alistair, grumpy and distracted as ever, suffers a stroke and his illness finally releases the memory of a secret that he had buried deep within himself years ago. He longs for Katie, the younger sister he was forced to leave behind in Scotland when he came to Canada in 1922 as a "homechild." Homechild is set in Glengarry County in eastern Ontario where both of Joan MacLeod's parents were raised on farms just a few miles apart. Each had home children working on their family's farms in the 1920s, something she wasn't aware of when she first started her research for this play.

Homechild premiered in 2006 at Toronto's Canadian Stage Company followed by a West Coast premiere in 2007 at The Belfry Theatre in Victoria. Since then the play has been produced at professional theatres across Canada and has been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 5 female, 3 male

What people say:

"Joan MacLeod has written deeply complex characters who pulse with life and humour. She has illuminated how complicated and humiliating life was for homechildren… MacLeod has written a moving story of huge implications — what family, identity and personal history mean." — CBC

"As with her other works, MacLeod skillfully wraps humour and drama together in a historical blanket, managing to both inform and entertain her audience without either aspect suffering for it." — Monday Magazine

About the Playwright:

Joan MacLeod is an internationally celebrated Canadian playwright. She grew up in North Vancouver, lived for eight years in Toronto as playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre, before settling on Bowen Island just outside Vancouver. Since 2004, she has taught at the department of writing at University of Victoria. Her plays have been extensively produced around the world, and she has won multiple theatre awards, including the recipient the Governor General's Award, two Chalmers Canadian Play Awards and the 2011 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, Canada's largest theatre award.