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As a playwright, Annie tosses characters into cauldrons of comedic absurdity, yet her storytelling is often underpinned by deep societal issues. As an actor, she heads for character parts. Never the romantic lead, much more likely to be clad in leather or stomping around as a starving lion.
Some highlights of her writing and acting.
A Lysistrata
act2studioWORKS at the Alumnae Theatre, June 2023, dir Nicole Wilson
About
Not that Lysistrata. A collective of six writers from Act II STUDIO adapted Aristophanes’s original work, fiercely political and focusing on the older women. Aristophanes had so much to say that we wrote him into the play. Annie created the role.
Quote
“I stood at the Acropolis and spoke to wicked little men. End the Peloponnesian War, BLAH BLAH BLAH END THE WAR THE WAR that sucks our resources our money our sharpest blades and pays us back with corpses, burned flesh where once were sons and husbands.”
Review
“This reworking has all the bawdy humour of the original. Aristophanes himself (Annie Massey) is our narrator here—manifesting as a gender-fluid dominatrix, dressed in leather and sporting a whip.”
“Annie Massey gives a stand-out performance as the aforementioned Aristophanes. act2studioWORKS is doing phenomenal work.”
Thisbe and the Lion
Once Upon A Shipping Container, by act2studioWORKS at the Palmerston Library Theatre, October 2024, dir Barbara Hyland, with Tobi Kaufman and Annie Massey
About
The brief was to write a two-hander, with an assigned genre, and set in a shipping container. Thisbe and the Lion is a heroic fantasy which asks, what if there were a different ending to Midsummer Night’s Dream? Much of the text was in iambic heptameter.
Quote
“Aha! Thou art a clever wench … hey, Thizzle, can we drop the iambic shit, I’m not an educated lion and this rhyming stuff is doing my head in.”
Christmas Day at the Roadside Diner
Women At Play(s) 6, Red Sandcastle Theatre, March 2024, dir Susan A Lock, with Andrea Lyons and Shuyi Jia
About
One of six one-act plays selected from more than 50 entries for WAP 6, an all-women festival of original plays by Canadian women. Set in the unremarkable Roadside Diner on Christmas Day, a surprise delivery of fresh meat adds a new dish to the menu and kitchen horrors are revealed.
Quote
“Know how to work a rotisserie? We need to get the raccoons on the spit.”
The Loud Fence
The Sandra Kerr New Plays Festival, act2studioWORKS at the Alumnae Theatre, July 2022, dirs Della Golland and Annie Massey, with Rob Scavone and Jan Boase
About
The Loud Fence is about collateral damage, the kind that lasts for decades and destroys lives. Two strangers meet on the sidewalk outside a Catholic cathedral and find compassion as they slowly reveal the pain and guilt of their damaged lives. A fictional story based on actual events in the Catholic church and set by the beribboned fence of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat, Australia.
Quote
“DINAH: Did you know your friend was being abused, at the time?”
“KIT: Yeah. I knew.”
“DINAH: Did your friend report it? Did you?”
“KIT: Nah. What was the point. Mother Church just sells a couple of oil paintings and pays off a fancy lawyer and the shirtlifters never see the inside of a jail cell. There’s no justice.”
Lizard Season
Fresh Picks, act2studioWORKS at the Alumnae Theatre, July 2022, dir Paul Bilodeau
#CanadaPerforms online from the National Arts Centre, May 2020 (photo below: Diana Di Mauro, Neila Lem, Riaz Mahmood and Joel Haszard.)
Selected for the 2020 New Ideas Festival at the Alumnae Theatre but cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic.
About
A young Toronto couple fall into a jungle adventure rife with mistaken identity, a crazy conspiracy theorist and possibly lizards. Comes with a side swipe at Jordan Peterson.
Quote
“It’s said that lizards want to enslave the human race so they can rule the world again. These Lizard People are dangerous shape-shifters, the reptilian elite, aliens who arrived on Earth from a galaxy far away.
They hide in full sight among us … they lead our corporations. They run Big Pharma. They own Hollywood. They lurk in the top levels of government.
Bob Hope was a lizard. Surprised? Bill and Hillary. Dubya. Henry Kissinger – well perhaps that’s not a surprise.”
String of Pearls
by Michele Lowe
Alumnae Theatre Company, April 2023, dir Barbara Larose
About
Annie joined an ensemble of eight actors playing multiple parts. She acted the roles of Hallie, Aunt Patti, Gloria, and Kyle’s mom.
Shown here as Kyle’s mom, with Shannon Pitre as Kyle.
Dromio! Dromio!
By William Shakespeare, abridged from Comedy of Errors
Act II STUDIO at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, TMU Campus, February 2019, dir Vrenia Ivonoffski
About
Act II’s version of Comedy of Errors, faithful to the Bard’s text except for the bits we added. Annie was cast as Luce, the saucy wench, and Dr Pinch, the deranged exorcist.
Quote
“I charge thee, Satan, housed within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers
And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven!”
King John
by William Shakespeare
act2studioWORKS at the TMU Performance Centre, February 2017, dir Vrenia Ivonoffski
About
My first big gig in the class play, as Philip Falconbridge (The Bastard) in a role shared with Mary Oakley.
Kings, Queens. Plantagenets. Capetians. England v France. Richard Coeur de Lion. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Classic.
Quote
“Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,
And say, There is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be,
To say, There is no vice but beggary.”