Factory Girls by Sharon King-Campbell (St. John's, NL)

ABOUT THE PLAY

In 1916, a representative from the Imperial Munitions Board announced to a gathering of women at Massey Hall in downtown Toronto that women were to be recruited to munitions factories. The intention from the Board and from the Canadian government was to dilute the masculine labour force with unskilled female labourers in order to allow the largest possible number of able-bodied men to enlist for deployment overseas. Hundreds of women from a wide array of backgrounds answered the call, efficiently and effectively building weapons, aircraft and ships for the war effort. Factory Girls explores the lives and motives of ten such women who take up employment in a fictional factory in Toronto. Members of the leisure class join working girls as they navigate a newfound sense of freedom and agency against a background of increasingly violent nationalism, imperialism and xenophobia. As the pressures of war build and what is normal becomes increasingly strange, aspects of absurdity pop up in both the lives of these women and in the telling of their stories. Factory Girls explores the question of what it means to make a bomb in the context of these women’s diverse economic, social and ideological backgrounds.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Sharon King-Campbell is a playwright, actor, director and storyteller based in St. John's, NL. Her solo show, Original, recently toured Newfoundland and to venues in and around Ottawa. Other works for the stage include Give Me Back and Fighting Fire with Snow. She was the 2017 recipient of the Rhonda Payne Award and her short story, Refracted, won the Arts & Letters in 2019. Sharon produces her own work under the banner of skc originals. 

sharonkingcampbell.com

skcoriginals.wordpress.com

Factory Girls was created as part of the requirements for a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing at Memorial University of Newfoundland.