Playwright wove family history into first play: You Used to Call Me Marie ...

Playwright and actor Tai Amy Grauman wrote the first draft of her play You Used to Call Me Marie … when she was part of the Arts Club Theatre Company’s LEAP playwriting Intensive program.

Now, the play is being produced by Western Canada’s largest theatre company.

Designed to mentor young people ages 16 to 25 through the creation of original dramatic work, the program is free to students and financed entirely by donors and sponsors. The payoff for Canadian theatre is original new works telling important new stories for audiences to enjoy.

In Grauman’s case, this meant going back into her own family history to develop a multi-generational tale of the emergence of the Métis Nation across the Prairies through the fur trade to tumultuous events in the 1930s right up to the present. Grauman