Caleb Nickerson
SHAWVILLE Sept. 29, 2017
This Friday past, students, history buffs and theatre enthusiasts alike descended upon the R.A. Hall in Shawville for a production in support of the local high school.
Entitled Women Vote Indirect, the play followed the lives of the women behind the scenes during Canada’s Confederation, including Sir John A. Macdonald’s fiancée, Agnes Bernard and George-Étienne Cartier’s wife, Hortense.
Joan Conrod, a former teacher at Pontiac High School (PHS) who currently resides in Ottawa, wrote and directed the production. She said she got her inspiration from spending time on Parliament Hill, volunteering for MP Anita Vandenbeld.
“In any room of any size, there are [paintings of] the fathers of Confederation,” she said. “I was thinking one day, ‘Where are the women?’”
Conrod said that writing the play took about six months and is told mostly in the form of letters and diaries read aloud.
“I did a lot of research about the fathers of Confederation, but mostly about their wives, about whom little is known,” she said.
The play is set in 1864, as the leaders of that era met in Charlottetown and Quebec City to discuss uniting the provinces into the Dominion of Canada.
Conrod had the play performed at her church in Ottawa, where a fellow retired teacher from the Pontiac happened to see it.
“The retired teachers from the elementary school are very much a group, they meet once a month for lunch,” she said, explaining that when the idea of a local performance of the play was put forth to the group, they responded enthusiastically. A cast was made up of nine performers and three singers.
Conrod explained that proceeds from the production were going towards the PHS auditorium restoration project. Having taught drama at the school for many years, she said that it was a cause close to her heart.
“I couldn’t say no,” she said.
On Friday afternoon PHS students took in the play, with another performance for the general public taking place in the evening.
“I thought when I left Shawville four years ago, that I was also leaving drama,” Conrod said. “That was the wrong idea.”
