About the Play:

Serving Elizabeth is a full-length drama by Marcia Johnson who was inspired to write the play after watching an early episode of the acclaimed Netflix television series, The Crown. Mercy, a Kenyan independence activist, is asked to cook for the visiting princess Elizabeth, who turns out to have a few surprises of her own. Sixty years later, the making of a TV series about the royal family causes more than a few culture clashes for a young Kenyan-Canadian production intern. Serving Elizabeth is a fresh, funny, and smart new play about colonialism, monarchy, and who is serving whom – or what.

Serving Elizabeth begins in Kenya in 1952, during the fateful royal visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. Mercy, a restaurant owner, is approached to cook for the royal couple. As a staunch anti-monarchist, how can she take the job? She vows to stick to her principles, but her daughter, Faith, keeps trying to convince her to take the job. Decades later, in the production offices of a TV series about Queen Elizabeth, a Kenyan-Canadian film student, Tia, serves as an intern on the project. It's a perfect fit for her as she has been a fan of princesses her whole life. But when she reads the Kenya episode, she discovers that there may be more to the story of the royal visit than we have been led to believe. The tension between people and politics – opposition to imperialism, embedded prejudice and unconscious bias, and an irresistible attraction to the monarchy as presented in popular media – infuses and ignites the play.

Serving Elizabeth premiered in 2020 at Western Canadian Theatre Company in Kamloops, B.C. It was one of six plays selected for the 2021 season of Canada's prestigious Stratford Festival in Ontario.

Cast: 3 women, 2 men

What people say:

"Brings new twists to storytelling about the royal family." — Kamloops Omega

About the Playwright:

Marcia Johnson is a Canadian playwright and actor based in Toronto. Her plays have been performed by the Blyth Festival, Obsidian Theatre Company, Theatre Direct Canada, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, Black Theatre Workshop, Western Canadian Theatre Company, and more.