Ann-Marie MacDonald's dramatic turn for the better

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When they were both young and struggling artists, Alisa Palmer made a proposal to the slightly senior Ann-Marie MacDonald. "I remember I was wearing a black turtleneck - the 1980s theatre uniform," Ms. Palmer recalls with a laugh in the kitchen of the house the couple now share in Seaton Village with their two daughters and an elderly pit bull. "And I was even sitting on a ottoman, so I was slightly lower than Ann-Marie. I said, 'You be my mentor and I'll be your protégé.'"

"I call it Alisa's reverse-Svengali moment," Ms. MacDonald says.

In the intervening years, though, Ms. Palmer has played anything but the protégé to the woman who'd eventually become her wife and a best-selling author, directing both her and her plays, including a sold-out 2001 production of Ms. MacDonald's hit, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) , to great acclaim.

Their relationship is largely collaborative; most recently the two have been working on a bold upcoming production of the pitch-black comedy Cloud 9 . Ms. MacDonald is part of an ensemble cast which includes Shaw and Stratford regulars Evan Buliung, Yanna McIntosh and television and stage star Megan Follows.

On paper, the plot of this Caryl Churchill play sounds risky: a gender-bending, race-defying, cross-generational domestic farce. In the first act, Ms. MacDonald plays a 9-year-old boy in thrall to the man who is sexually abusing him. Hardly a mainstream blockbuster, this Mirvish production is still a sizable undertaking. But the company is hoping to recoup its $1.5-million investment after the play debuts on Jan. 19. "It must be a financial risk," says veteran producer Derrick Chua. "[But]they have certainly stacked the odds in their favour by hiring a terrific local director and an amazingly experienced local cast. That certainly bodes well for a strong production of the play."

Written in 1978 at the brink of the Thatcher revolution, the play depicts the tidal waves of social change - feminism, gay liberation, anti-racism - wreaking havoc on traditional domestic arrangements. A hundred years pass between Act One, set in colonial, Victorian-era Africa, and Act Two, which takes place in a London park in 1979, yet the recurring characters have only aged 25 years, time-travel trickery that is typical of Ms. Churchill's theatrical mischief.

This is the fourth play of Ms. Churchill's that Ms. Palmer has directed. A winner of six Doras and two Chalmers, she shares the playwright's interest in themes of power, sexuality, identity and family, and her artistic mission is to bring works by women to the stage and to help diversify the talent pool and the audience of Canadian theatre.

It appears to be working: Ms. Palmer's 2007 production of Ms. Churchill's feminist comedy Top Girls at Soulpepper Theatre, which also featured Ms. MacDonald and Megan Follows, was a hit, as was its remount in 2008. Soulpepper's artistic director, Albert Schultz, credits part of that success to its female-centred story. "It's rare that you get a chance to present plays that are written by women, about women, for women," Mr. Schultz says. "And it did considerably well, considering that Ms. Churchill is not as well known by audiences here in Canada. With other writers of her vintage, like David Mamet or Harold Pinter, you can sell tickets to their plays simply on their names. Ms. Churchill doesn't have the same recognition, but there was something about Top Girls that caught the imagination of our audience."

"Her work isn't heartwarming," Ms. MacDonald says. "It's heart-searing. Maybe heart-barbecuing. It's militantly unsentimental. I've always wanted to write a play that could be billed as containing 'sex, violence and lots of laughs.' That's Cloud 9 . I'm quite jealous."

But if Cloud 9 is a natural fit for both Ms. Palmer's and Ms. MacDonald's sensibilities, Ms. Palmer didn't think at first that it would appeal to Mirvish Productions when she pitched it during a meeting 18 months ago. While the company has produced serious dramas in the past, such as Djanet Sears's The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God , it's best known for crowd-pleasing musicals like The Sound of Music . So Ms. Palmer, who was the resident director of the 2005 Mirvish production of Lord of the Rings , was surprised when the company agreed to tackle Cloud 9 . It turns out that that the play had run at the Old Vic in London, England, in 1997 when David and Ed Mirvish owned the legendary theatre. Mirvish executive producer Brian Sewell had produced it in Toronto in the early 1980s. Not only was the company familiar with the play, they saw it as an opportunity to expand their reach. Mirvish has had a surprise success with the gently outré musical comedy My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding , which it picked up from the Fringe Festival. Cloud 9 offers Mirvish an opportunity to see if it can originate a subversive and experimental production that will appeal to a young, diverse, downtown audience.

Still, Mirvish is, to a degree, hedging its bets - or at least setting modest expectations. Cloud 9 will only have a month-long run in Mirvish's smallest house, the 700-seat Panasonic Theatre, which the company purchased just over a year ago. And because a significant segment of the Mirvish audience might be more comfortable with, say, Fiddler on the Roof 's musical numbers than with Cloud 9 's orgy scene, the latter play is not being offered as part of the subscription series.

So what exactly are the stakes? The show will need to break even, says John Karastamatis, director of communications. "And in theatre," he says, "breaking even is a success." Still, for all its politics and sex, a provocative play such as Cloud 9 can be a less risky venture than the more costly, mega-productions like The Producers and Lord of the Rings , both of which were flops.

Mr. Karastamatis says that the company was impressed by Ms. Palmer's entrepreneurial approach. "She has a producer's eye," he says, "but that doesn't compromise her artistic vision." Ms. Palmer has brought in a social-marketing company to help promote the show through a blog, Twitter and social-networking campaign in an effort to reach a non-theatre-going crowd. And the company will be selling blocks of discounted tickets to women's groups and gay and lesbian organizations. Mirvish is also counting on Ms. MacDonald's celebrity to help fill seats - early ticket buyers received a free copy Ms. MacDonald's Oprah-picked novel, Fall on Your Knees .

For Ms. Palmer, who paid her dues in subsidized theatre doing everything, she says, "from directing to fundraising to serving tequila during intermission," working with a commercial theatre company is "bracing. I like the style and speed." Neither she nor Ms. MacDonald find it incongruous to be working on a production of this size. "I came up through alternative theatre," says Ms. MacDonald, "but I never thought that meant that hordes of people shouldn't come see my work."

Although the scope of the enterprise may be new, their professional relationship has been tested by previous collaborations. "Working together is easier than living together," Ms. Palmer mused. Added Ms. MacDonald, "Alisa is highly analytical. As an actor, that's a virtue. As a partner, it can be painful. Sometimes you don't want your partner to see your flaws quite so clearly."

Long-time friend Jackie Maxwell, artistic director of the Shaw Festival, says the fact they are a couple enhances their work together. "They communicate so well and understand each other," she says. "And they both have great big appetites. Alisa is full of brio and she's fearless. Ann-Marie has endless ideas and opinions that she spins in the air like so many plates."

Ms. Palmer shares that sleight-of-hand. At the same time Cloud 9 is running at the Panasonic, playwright Hannah Moscovitch's drama East of Berlin , which Ms. Palmer directed, will be at the 100-seat Tarragon Extra Space. "Both of those scales of shows are beautiful," she says, "and both of these plays are telling stories with the same values. That's what I love about this city. There are so many options."

In fact, she sees a Mirvish production of a play like Cloud 9 being a step toward the creation of a Toronto Broadway - a commercial theatre culture that can support both tour-bus blockbusters and high art. "I never underestimate audiences," she says. "I think there are a lot of people in the city who are game for a play like Cloud 9 . And as an artist in Toronto, I find it so valuable to have a different venue and context to work in. I think this is going to be a perfect match."

Special to The Globe and Mail