About the Play:

The Trespassers is a full-length comedic drama by Morris Panych. Poignant, thought-provoking and sharply sardonic, The Trespassers is a three-generation family portrait about a crusty grandfather, his born-again Christian daughter, and the grandson who's getting some wild life lessons from the old man.

The Trespassers is about the battle for the heart and mind of an adolescent boy in a dead-end town in the middle of nowhere – not small enough to be a quaint place or large enough to be in any way an interesting one. They once had a sawmill here, which was a going concern before it was shut down in a labour dispute, and it now crowns a sort of half-town, gutted of its reason for being. Fifteen-year-old Lowell is no average teenager – and his grandfather, Hardy, is no conventional role model. Whether urging the boy to pilfer peaches from an abandoned orchard, arranging for his sexual initiation with an older woman in town, or teaching him the importance of gambling, Hardy is the despair of Lowell's born-again Christian mother, Cash. But how far into forbidden territory has Lowell actually ventured? An unapologetic radical socialist, Hardy may once have owned the abandoned orchard at the heart of the town where he and Lowell spend much of their time trespassing, discussing capitalism and the finer points of the Ten Commandments, as if ethics were nothing more than a game of poker where we win or lose not because of what's in the hand we've been dealt, but because of how we play it with what's in our heads. Torn between his grandfather's atheism and his mother's Christian fundamentalism, Lowell begins to understand that things are not what they seem in what is left of this town. When a suspicious policemen shows up to investigate a mysterious murder, Lowell's skills at shaping the truth to protect both himself and those he cares about are put to the ultimate test: shall he plea bargain, or stick to the truth as he understands it? As Hardy once pointed out to him, "There's something in-between lying and not lying. It's called a story."

The Trespassers premiered in 2009 at Studio Theatre during the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. It has subsequently been staged in 2010 at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, and in 2011 at Vancouver Playhouse.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"…a cause for celebration…." — Toronto Star

"With The Trespassers, Panych has crafted the theatrical equivalent of Johnny Cash's final output – a melancholic, darkly humorous and wrenchingly beautiful portrait of life, death, love and family." — Waterloo Record

"You can see why audiences would take to this family tale of an emotionally volatile fifteen-year-old and his cantankerous – and terminally ill – grandfather who haltingly prepares the youth for life … It's bittersweet but not terribly so, and Panych's meaty dialogue is smoothly handled.." — Associated Press

"Charming and, this being Panych, funny." — National Post

"The Trespassers has everything going for it, and is very good entertainment indeed." — scenechanges.com

About the Playwright:

Morris Panych is one of Canada's most significant contemporary playwrights. He has written more than 25 works for the stage and directed nearly 100. He is the winner of two Governor General's Literary Awards for Drama, the country's most prestigious literary honour. He has won 14 Jessie Richardson Awards, three Sidney Riske Writing Awards and five Dora Mavor Moore Awards.