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site-specific theatre co in Kingston ON

I Was Here 

A workshop of a play by Emily Keyes in the hiOttawa Jail Hostel
February 2016
Co-produced by Carleton Public History Department

EMILY/MARIA | Hayley Berteka 
MARY ANN/MOTHER | Nicole Bedford 
MARIAH/CASSIDY | Andrea Connell
CHESTER/JOHN | Dean Tardioli 
ROBERT/BRIAN/NICK | Tim Ginley 

PRODUCER/DIRECTOR | Mariah Horner
PLAYWRIGHT | Emily Keyes

Time: 1882.
Place: Goulbourn, Ontario, and the Carleton County Gaol, Ottawa, Canada.

Picture
Dean Tardioli, Photo by Mariah Horner

I Was Here is a one-act piece that explores a fateful shooting outside of Ottawa, and the entanglement of bringing it to the stage. It was inspired by the research of Emily Keyes as part of her graduate work at Carleton University into the shooting of Robert McCaffrey in 1882 by his pregnant lover, Maria Spearman.All the characters in this piece are real, in the sense that they lived and died. However, the play should not be taken as an account of what “really happened.” Instead, it is the writer’s imagining of what may have happened, and the events that led to the death of Robert McCaffrey, and the imprisonment of Maria and Chester Spearman. It is also an exploration into the difficulties of adapting history for the stage, and the indebtedness we feels to “get it right.”

​This staged reading will be performed in the Carleton County Gaol, now the HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel. This staged reading is presented in partnership with the Dean Catherine Khorduc and the Office of the Dean of Arts, Carleton University, The Frank Underhill Endowment Fund and the HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel. ​
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