About the Play:

Seeds is a full-length drama by Annabel Soutar. Think you know what's on your plate? Think again. Centering on the four-year legal showdown between biotech giant Monsanto and a Saskatchewan farmer, Seeds leads us through a high-voltage labyrinth of political maneuvering, patent wars, cash-fuelled science and the global domination of the planet's seed supply.

Seeds is arresting documentary theatre chronicling the high stakes legal battle between Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser and biotech giant Monsanto Inc. Part courtroom drama, part social satire, the play follows the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada showdown, a David-and-Goliath struggle that cast Schmeiser as the small farmer underdog fighting the unscrupulous megacorporation. Monsanto accused him of growing their genetically patented Roundup Ready canola seeds on his property without paying the licensing fee they require. While debates about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are multiplying everywhere, life-changing experiments are being conducted in the food we eat. Based on court trial transcripts, interviews with Percy Schmeiser, Monsanto representatives, and with farmers, academics, lawyers and scientists from all across Canada, Seeds asks the essential question: "Can you patent a living thing?" Or as Schmeiser famously asked, "Who owns life?" The answer to his question will determine the future of our food system.

The initial version of Seeds was presented in 2005 at the historic Monument National Theatre in Montreal. This updated version of Seeds premiered in 2012 at Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. Since then it was performed at the 2013 Festival TransAmériques, went on to tour to five provinces across Canada, and has been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 4 female, 3 male

What people say:

"Soutar has done such a good job sowing the seeds of doubt that you wonder if this is nothing more than passionate rhetoric. Her play gives us plenty to think about, but leaves us to make up our own minds." — Globe and Mail

"Seeds is great journalism, and even better theatre." — Montreal Gazette

"Seeds has all the ingredients of a rile-you-up and make-you-think humdinger of a story." — Hour

"As narrative, [Annabel Soutar's] script is both thoughtful and exciting; it makes the science fairly clear and the personal issues convincingly complex … one of the most impressive docu-dramas I've seen." — National Post

"Soutar shows how messy and far-reaching controversies in Big Science have become, and how the restructuring of age-old relationships by new biotechnologies is being enforced and resisted. She wisely avoids heaping all the criticism on Monsanto, questioning Schmeiser’s motives and story as well." — Now Toronto

About the Playwright:

Annabel Soutar is a Canadian playwright, director and theatre producer. She is the artistic director of Porte Parole, a Montreal-based theatre company dedicated to creating and producing original documentary plays about contemporary social and political issues. Born and raised in Montreal, She studied English and Theatre at Princeton University in New Jersey where she completed her degree in 1994. While at Princeton, under the tutelage of renowned American playwright Emily Mann, Annabel learned about the documentary approach to theatre and since 1998 she has been applying it to plays she produces in Montreal.