The time is 1936, the place is Northern England, a weekend in the country house of the Ashburys. Jane Ashbury dreams of being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, from east to west. Her childhood friend, Nora Duckworth, has flight fantasies that are decidedly more eccentricÉ
The weekend erupts into chaos, as seven characters become more and more entangled with each other; there is a failed sexual betrayal; an outrageous attempt to fly without wings; a mental breakdown prompted by memories of World War I; an ongoing plot to sabotage JaneÕs plans to fly across the Atlantic; and finally, there is a sŽance in which many truths are revealed.
Lyrical, luminous, wonderfully theatricalÑAnd Up They Flew is a Òserious comedyÓ about the tensions of the 20th century

Martha Ross co-founded Theatre Columbus with Leah Cherniak after she graduated from Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Continuing in the spirit of their training, their company has created twenty-eight original comedies, including the internationally acclaimed, The Anger in Ernest & Ernestine (1987); The Attic, the Pearls and 3 Fine Girls (1995), for which she received a Dora Mavor Moore award for her performance; and The Betrayal, which received a 1999 Chalmers Award for Best New Play. As well as performing, Martha has written several plays, including, Dr. Dapertutto (nominated for the Floyd S.Chalmers Best New Play award in 1990); Ratbag, a musical about the Industrial Revolution, which she wrote with John Millard; The Dog and the Angel for the Caravan Farm Theatre Co. (1999); The Crack for Rumble Theatre (2002) and most recently, And Up They Flew. She is currently writing a one woman show, On the Lam, about a woman who goes into hiding after killing her neighbour, whom she catches stealing her familyÕs water supply. The woman reflects on love, death, scarcity and her obsession with Samuel ColeridgeÕs epic poem, ÒThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Ó

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ÒPart of the reason for the success of their shows is that Ross, Cherniak, and their collaborators never lose the heart of their work, never go for the abstract instead of the human.ÓÑPlays International