About the Play:

The volume Maggie and Pierre & The Duchess contains two full-length dramas by Linda Griffiths. Part fairy tale, part historical treatise, these two modern epics from one of Canada's most highly acclaimed playwrights examine the landscape of changing nations and opposing ideals. Justin Trudeau is the first son of a former Canadian Prime Minister to hold the same office himself. Maggie and Pierre tells the story of his parents, Margaret (née Sinclair) and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The Duchess is a witty take on the woman who single-handedly de-throned a king!

Maggie and Pierre is a tour de force one-woman play about the pressures of power and fame under the media spotlight. It's the late 1960s. 19-year-old Maggie Sinclair is a hippie free spirit, born out of love, socialism and a lot of dope. Pierre Trudeau is nearing 50, urbane, charismatic and soon-to-be elected as Prime Minister of Canada. Reason and passion soon collide as they meet, fall in love, marry, live together in the public spotlight, have three children, and break up in a very ugly and very public way. Maggie and Pierre quickly became a Canadian classic after its world premiere in 1980 at Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. The play was the winner of the first Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, went on to tour extensively throughout Canada including the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, and was presented Off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City. (Cast: 1 woman)

What people say:

"There was so much to admire in this two-act monologue about the tortured relationship between Canada's brainy but aloof prime minister and his young flower child wife. Linda played all three roles, two of which were men. It was exciting to see Linda's voice emerge, and exciting to see the gender bending. It took courage for a woman to take on a man's role, especially a man everyone in the audience already knew. Perhaps most amazing of all, the play actually managed to make Canadian politics sexy." — The Book of Lists

"Never false or facile, and always engaging." — Variety

"An often funny and usually intelligent attempt to use the Trudeaus—their relationship with each other and with us—as a touchstone for the shattered ideals, the betrayed hopes and the still-simmering tensions of the past decade." — The Globe and Mail

The Duchess AKA Wallis Simpson enters the audacious world of Wallis Simpson – from the filth of Shanghai brothels to the regal splendour of Buckingham Palace – shedding light on the infamous woman for whom King Edward VIII would eventually abdicate his throne. In this adult Alice in Wonderland, Wallis's personified jewels, her Royal Court chorus, and the royal family themselves dance us through the personal, the political, and the fabulist, giving us a glimpse at the life of the controversial woman who diverted the course of the twentieth century. (First Staged in 1998 at Theatre Passe Muraille inToronto; Cast: 5 women, 5 men, with doubling)

What people say:

"A clever, witty piece that swirls together Wallis and Edward, Hitler, Noël Coward, the future Queen Mum, and even Simpson's personified jewels." — NOW Magazine

"Griffiths is one of Canada's 'originals' known not only for the quality of her work, but for the sheer range of her career." — Maclean's

About the Playwright:

Linda Griffiths (1953-2014) was a Canadian actress, producer and writer. One of Canada's most lauded modern theatre voices, she reached international fame with her production of Maggie and Pierre, a one-woman show in which she played former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, his wife Maggie, and a reporter. She has received five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, winning Outstanding New Play four times for: Maggie and Pierre, O.D. in Paradise, Jessica, and Alien Creature. She was also a two-time winner of the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award for Jessica and Alien Creature, and two-time nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-Language Drama for The Darling Family and Alien Creature.