The Watershed

Description

How much do we value clean water? Enough to stop our industrialized way of life from degrading it? The documentary play The Watershed follows an artist and her family in the struggle to chart a sustainable course between economic prosperity and environmental stewardship. Largely constructed from original interviews conducted by the playwright, The Watershed brings to the stage a multiplicity of ideological perspectives and conflicting visions for Canada's natural resources, and its characters speak the words of real Canadians from all across the political spectrum. As the play reaches its boiling point, one thing becomes abundantly clear: a contemporary play about water in Canada must also be about oil. And so the playwright and family travel to Alberta's tar sands, encountering along the way some of the world's great freshwater scientists, some of Canada's fiercest environmental activists, and impassioned individuals at work in the country's burgeoning oil sector. Policy is anything but dry in The Watershed; in fact, it holds startling implications for our national identity and future. Cast of eight women and men.

Annabel Soutar is a Montreal-based playwright and theater producer. In 2000 she co-founded the theater company Porte Parole Productions with actor Alex Ivanovici and she has acted as artistic director of the company since its inception. Annabel studied English and theater 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 theater and since 1998 she has been applying it to plays she produces in Montreal. Her original plays, Novembre, 2000 Questions, Sante!, Seeds, Import/Export, and Sexy beton have been mounted in Montreal at the Monument-National, Place des Arts, Espace Go, and at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts. In 2012 Seeds was published in both English (Talonbooks) and French (Les Editions ecosociete) and presented across Canada in Montreal (Centaur Theatre), Calgary (Theatre Junction), Vancouver (PUSH Festival for the Performing Arts), and in Ottawa (National Arts Centre of Canada) in a production directed by Chris Abraham. In 2012 Annabel was commissioned with Chris Abraham of Crow's Theatre in Toronto to write a new documentary play about fresh water for the 2015 Toronto Pan American/Para Pan American Games cultural program, PANAMANIA. That play, The Watershed, premiered at the Berkeley Street Theatre (Canadian Stage) in Toronto during the games from July 12 to 19, 2015. Soutar lives in Montreal with actor Alex Ivanovici and their two daughters Ella and Beatrice.