PlayME - New and noteworthy top ranking drama podcast

Latest Episode: Home School

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Listen to past plays and short stories in our archives.

The Quarantine Chronicles: Home School

A couple of overwhelmed Quebecois parents are caught off guard when their children make a power-play. A thriller by Governor General’s Award winner Erin Shields.

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The Quarantine Chronicles: Blue Rare

A swanky restaurant invites a naive food reviewer to taste a truly rare dish. A humorous horror by Dora Award winner Kat Sandler.

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The Quarantine Chronicles: Saving Grace

A strained relationship between two sisters, who are separated by much more than a border. A family drama by Dora award winner Rosamund Small and Governor General Award winner Nicolas Billon.

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The Quarantine Chronicles: Liming

Travel to a distant future where Rihanna rules the world and people are mandated to socialize … or else. A sci-fi by Secret Life of Canada co-host Leah-Simone Bowen.

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The Quarantine Chronicles: Mizuko (Water Baby)

A couple at a lakeside cottage is haunted by a mysterious presence trapped between two worlds. A Japanese-infused horror story by Governor General Award winner Hiro Kanagawa.

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The Quarantine Chronicles: Raking Light

Deep within the Prado in Madrid, an art historian restores Velázquez’s famous Las Meninas painting while society crumbles outside. A drama by Governor General Award winner Jordan Tannahill.

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The Quarantine Chronicles: Don’t Get Me Startered

A novice baker is gifted a sourdough starter with a mind of its own. An absurd comedy by Mark Crawford, 2020 nominee for the Leacock Medal for Humour.

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Introducing: The Quarantine Chronicles — a special summer series

You hover on the edge of two realities. Behind you is the life you’ve always known, growing more distant with each passing hour. Ahead is a world you could never have imagined. This summer, PlayME proudly presents: The Quarantine Chronicles. The chronicles are seven short works of audio fiction written by top Canadian playwrights. Namely: Jordan Tannahill, Kat Sandler, Hiro Kanagawa, Erin Shields, Mark Crawford, Leah Simon-Bowen, Rosamund Small and Nicolas Billon. All were invited to write short audio plays that capture the spirit of our distanced, disorienting and deranged times — with wonderfully weird results.

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The Show Must Go On: Sir John A: Acts of A Gentrified Ojibway Rebellion by Drew Hayden Taylor

Part 1:

Bobby Rabbit has some unfinished business with Canada’s first prime minister. When he finds out his grandfather’s medicine bundle has been rotting away in a British museum, he talks his buddy Hugh into taking a road trip with him all the way to Kingston. There they plan to pull off the ultimate heist. At a roadside McDonald’s they meet a university student named Anya who is licking her wounds after a nasty breakup. She joins them on their journey.

Part 2:

Back on the road, tensions in the car mount between Bobby and Anya as they square off about everything from racism to colonialism to the lingering effects of residential schools. They both know their fair share of history but see it from different perspectives. Hugh borrows Anya’s knife to makes some peanut butter road trip snacks, but when he accidentally lets slip their plans, she pulls it and a can of bear spray on them and demands answers.

Part 3:

At a bar on a break from the road, Bobby and Hugh share the real reason they are heading to Kingston with Anya. She storms off after a heated debate and Hugh warns Bobby that he has to stop making smart women angry. Hugh convinces her to continue on the journey to Kingston as he doesn’t want to leave her alone in the middle of nowhere. Anya reveals she has secrets of her own. In Kingston, Bobby is confronted with an unexpected presence.

Bonus Episode: Interview with Drew Hayden Taylor

Laura talks to Drew Hayden Taylor, who was visiting Toronto from Curve Lake First Nations. They talk about why he decided to tackle the daunting task of writing a comedy about Sir John A MacDonald, how he went from self-taught to nationally celebrated and why he’s actually feeling quite good in these uncertain times. (Hint: he’s been quite busy!)

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The Show Must Go On: Three Women of Swatow Up by Chloe Hung

Part 1:

Grandmother is drinking gin naked while reading the Bible when she hears an anxious voicemail from Mother. The message says she wants to know how to make drunken chicken, which is odd because she is a vegetarian. Only her abusive husband eats meat at their home. Grandma keeps her worries to herself when Daughter comes home and the two quarrel over alcohol, weight, and life in general. Grandmother decides to go to Mother’s apartment. There she makes a grim discovery.

Part 2:

After arriving at Mother’s home, Grandmother is confronted with a grisly mess in the bathtub that she must help clean up. The two generations of women argue over tea, emojis, and who is responsible for the bloody crime scene that has unfolded. They try to scrub the bathroom of evidence when the Daughter unexpectedly arrives. Dark family secrets are revealed.

Part 3:

The women flash back through a history of abuse. Grandmother has had to watch Mother repeat her mistakes and is determined to keep Daughter from following in the same footsteps. Three generations of Swatow women discover they are bound by more than blood.

Bonus Episode: Interview with Chloe Hung

Chris talks to Chloe Hung who is currently living and working in LA. The Three Women of Swatow playwright shares why her relationship with her two grandmothers inspired her to write about family lore, how she likes to subvert people’s expectations about demure Asian women, and the differences she has learned between writing for the stage versus the screen.

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The Show Must Go On: Cowgirl Up by Anna Chatterton

Part 1:

The crowd goes wild as cowgirl Cassidy and her trusty horse Starbright successfully qualify for the Canadian Finals Rodeo in Red Deer Alberta, but first-time jitters make for a disastrous first run. Just as Cassidy considers calling it quits, the rookie pair catch the attention of three cowgirl goddesses who miss the crackle and the hustle of barrel racing. Joyce, Effie and BB have returned to Earth from their skybox above to mix with the mortals. They pledge to teach Cassidy how to cowgirl up.

Part 2:

After a huge win at the Canadian Finals Rodeo, fledgling cowgirl Cassidy wants a little time away from her horse and the Goddesses to celebrate. She saddles over to the bar and meets Jed, a Cowboy who doesn’t think much of Cowgirls or “can chasing.” After some whiskey and a two-step on the dance floor, Cassidy leaves her beloved horse out in the pen until the wee hours. Neither she nor her horse feel great the next day. Has she already blown the big race that will lead them all the way to the Calgary Stampede?

Part 3:

With the stakes as high as ever, Cassidy and her horse Starbright enter the ring for the next barrel race, but something isn’t right with her mare. After a nail-biting ride, they manage to win but Cassidy knows her horse. Starbright won’t’ be up for the next competition and it’s all Cassidy’s fault. The Goddesses try to comfort her and encourage her to work with a new horse for the next race. But after coming all this way with Starbright, can she really compete without her trusted friend?

Bonus Episode: Interview with Anna Chatterton:

Laura talks to Anna Chatterton who is physically distancing at home in Hamilton with her family. The Cowgirl Up playwright explains how she got interested in rodeo culture, the parallels she’s discovered between artists and cowgirls, and reveals which real-life women inspired some of her characters.

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The Show Must Go On: The Runner – by Christopher Morris

Part 1:

Where is Jacob? He doesn’t know. All he does know is that he is a volunteer for Z.A.K.A, an Israeli organization responsible for putting the bodies of Jews back together following accidents or terror attacks. And he is cold and wet. As he grapples with the memory of an attack, he starts to piece together the moment when he rushed to a scene of violence to find a dead Israeli soldier and a dying Arab girl clinging to life. He makes a life-altering decision.

Part 2:

The Arab girl haunts Jacob’s every thought. He thinks of her when he is sent to Ukraine to unearth remains from a mass grave. And when he slips through the door into a crowded nightclub in Tel Aviv on a hot and humid night. He wonders if God is punishing him for what he does in the dark. Then the head of Z.A.K.A calls him in and breaks some bad news.

Part 3:

Reeling from the loss of his job at Z.A.K.A, Jacob flees to his brother Ari’s home in an Israeli settlement. The two brothers, on opposite sides of an ideological argument, get into a dispute and Ari tells Jacob he doesn’t belong in Israel. Jacob decides he must see the Arab girl once again. He finds her home and bangs on her door. Not long later, he realizes exactly where he is.

Bonus Episode – An interview with Christopher Morris:

Chris talks to playwright Christopher who is self-isolating at home in Toronto, about how he first became interested in the Jewish volunteer force ZAKA when he was just a teen growing up in Markham. He also shares why it took almost a decade and several trips to Israel to write The Runner, and why he is compelled to write characters who are pushed to extremes.

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Secret Life of a Mother – by Hannah Moscovitch with Maev Beaty and Ann-Marie Kerr co-created with Marinda de Beer

Part 1:

Two months after giving birth to her son, a mothering app sends Hannah Moscovitch a tip: “Consider getting back in the sack with your husband, even if you don’t feel ready!”(Let’s just say it didn’t find her in the mood.) Together with friend and performer Maev Beaty, Hannah sets out to write the antithesis to the chirpy notification: the untold realities of motherhood and the taboo subjects that moms don’t openly share … starting with miscarriage.

Part 2:

Hannah, played by Maev, confides her fear that she — someone who can tune out oncoming traffic — won’t be a good mother. Also, would the pain of labour expose something ugly at the bottom of her psyche? After hours of contractions, gas to relieve the pain, and a team of doctors staring at her, she finds out.

Part 3:

After her son Elijah’s birth, Hannah is struck by the urge to sing him traditional Hebrew songs mixed with a smattering of Céline Dion. Both Hannah and Maev reveal their birthing war wounds before they agree that labour isn’t even the hard part. They wrestle with guilt and shame for having ambitions beyond raising babies. Then one boozy summer in Stratford, they give each other a special kind of permission they both need.

Bonus Episode – an interview with the SLOM Competitive:

Laura talks with Hannah, Maev, and Ann-Marie who are all working from home and mothering during isolation in Halifax, Toronto, and Lunenburg, N.S. The three women share how they wrote (and re-wrote and re-wrote) the story, why they wanted to complicate cheerful talk about motherhood and how damaging it is to keep women in the dark. “No one tells birth stories publicly or honestly.”

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Take d Milk, Nah – by Jivesh Parasam

Part 1:

Jiv is Canadian. Jiv is Indian. And Hindu. And West Indian. And Trinidadian too. Or maybe he is just colonized. In order to explore all these hyphenated identities, he creates the first-ever Hindu-Caribbean-Canadian identity play — even though he hates identity plays. He starts with a brief history of indentured servitude in Trinidad, and his family.

Part 2:

Jiv is the first in his family to be born in Canada and raised in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Here some people call him black, while his own family calls him “white boy”. Jiv goes on a teenage quest to Trinidad to untangle his roots and become more legitimately “third world”. Things do not go as planned.

Part 3:

Jiv shapeshifts again to prove identity is pretty trippy. Maybe we are all “Jiv”. Maybe this is all an illusion. But then a memory from Junior High brings him crashing back down to earth. Disaster strikes on 9/11 and Jiv feels forced to choose an “identity raft”. He’s not proud of his choice. He asks certain “Jivs” to skip to the next episode.

Part 4 – Epilogue:

We all meet again for one final thought from our multi-hyphenated hero. Here’s why it matters how we choose to define the divides between us, and within us.

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carried away on a crest of a wave – by David Yee

Part 1:

In 2004, the deadliest tsunami in recorded history tore through over a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean. In a series of vignettes, David Yee imagines the people left behind in disaster’s wake. In Australia, a scientist notes that the planet got smaller the day of the disaster. In Malaysia, two brothers toss family treasures to save their house from descending into the sea. In India, a priest tries to prove that his parishioners were saved by divine intervention.

Part 2:

The tragedy travels all the way to Toronto where a radio DJ defies his bosses to perform a parody of Tears for Fears. In Sri Lanka, a man speaks frankly to a child orphaned by the tsunami. And in Thailand, a man mourns his beloved wife in the company of an highly-specialized escort.

Part 3:

The ripples extend far below the surface of the earth as two men endlessly fall down a hole. In Salt Lake City, an FBI agent questions a bereaved mother about the child she lost in the tsunami. And on a sandy beach in Ko Phi Phi Island, Thailand, two men sit together deciding who is responsible for the tragedy.

Bonus episode – Interview with David Yee:

Chris talks to Governor General Award-winning playwright David Yee, who is currently isolating from home and workshopping a new play over Zoom. Yee reflects on why “underused” actors of colour often resort to writing their own stories, and why he wanted “Carried away on the crest of a wave” to be too big for small theatres. He also shares where he was when he first heard about the devastating 2004 Tsunami, and why he felt compelled to write an anthological play about “the lives that it touched, brought together and destroyed.”

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Crawlspace by Karen Hines

Part 1:

Writer Karen Hines dreams of homeownership so when she discovers a lemon yellow coach house advertised as a “condo alternative,” she decides to invest her life savings. She adores the granite countertop and the walk-in closet and its lack of basement. But on move-in day, she sits on the window sill and it crumbles beneath her. She soon learns that she hasn’t bought a coach house. She’s just sunk everything she owns into a glorified car garage.

Part 2:

Karen learns that not only is her coach house actually a converted garage, but also that it’s encroaching on her neighbour’s property. And because her neighbour won’t sell her the land, she can’t sell the house. And because she spent all her money on the house, she can’t afford to do the repairs. She falls deeper into debt and despair, and then she notices a mysterious foul odour emanating from god knows where.

Part 3:

The stench pervading from somewhere is a mystery no one can solve. Karen incurs tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt to find the problem and … deal with it. Karen’s coach house goes from bad investment to a health hazard. She must get out.

Bonus episode – Interview with Karen Hines:

Laura talks to playwright and performer Karen Hines about her solo show Crawlspace. Hines explains how her play was inspired by her true-life experience of buying a home, how it fundamentally changed her as a person and redefined her concept of home.

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The Boy in the Moon by Emil Sher

Based on the book by Ian Brown

Part 1:

An early delivery of their son catches Ian Brown and his wife Johanna Schneller by surprise. Their son Walker is born with a rare genetic disorder, which went undetected in the womb. His condition will impact everything from walking to talking to eating. And life changes, completely.

Part 2:

Walker is diagnosed with Cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome, a condition so rare only 300 people in the world have been diagnosed with it. Ian and his wife are faced with the task of raising a boy who can’t tell them anything, and soon find themselves imagining everything. They yearn to communicate with Walker and ask him questions. What do you dream at night? What do you think about? Why do you keep hitting yourself?

Part 3:

Ian reflects on the beautiful moments — the private language of tongue clicks and the joys of an echoing hallway. He also recalls the worst moments — his wife at the bottom of the darkness, and well-meaning friends who cannot help. The family makes a decision with a profound impact; a turning point with no turning back.

Bonus episode – Interview with Ian Brown and Emil Sher:

Chris talks to playwright Emil Sher and journalist Ian Brown about Ian’s bestselling book-turned-play, The Boy in the Moon. Both tell the story of Ian’s quest to connect with his son, Walker, who was born with a rare genetic disorder. The two writers discuss the challenge of portraying Ian’s family on stage; the guilt and shame associated with disability; and why Ian had to rethink the idea of love and where to find it.