With an introduction by Sara Tilley

From playwright and poet Shannon Bramer comes Trapsongs, a collection of three dark comedies that navigate the realm of the surreal and absurd.

In "Monarita," an intimate friendship between Mona, a frazzled new mother, and Rita, her beloved, estranged friend, is explored. Their interaction is a dance—part ballet, part mud-fight. In "The Collectors," Hanna Parson is being harassed by three ghastly collection agents who force her to confront her debt and isolation as she struggles to create meaningful art in her dishevelled apartment. And in the tragicomedy "The Hungriest Woman in the World," Aimee, a former artist, invites her preoccupied, workaholic husband, Robert, to the theatre to see a play about a sad octopus. His refusal sends her on a dark and playful journey into the topsy-turvy world of theatre itself.

Trapsongs is by turns comedic, grotesque, and profane, but is all the while a tender exploration of the human condition in all its hilarious and humbling glory. Although each of these plays is a discrete creation, they contain and hold each other like a Matryoshka doll; all of the main characters are trapped within the song of their own lives.

Shannon Bramer was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and now lives in Toronto. She is a playwright and poet who writes books for human beings of all ages. She is the author of suitcases and other poems (winner, Hamilton and Region Best Book Award), scarf, The Refrigerator Memory, Precious Energy, and Climbing Shadows: Poems for Children, illustrated by Cindy Derby. Shannon also conducts poetry workshops in schools and is the editor of Think City: The Poems of Gracefield Public School. Her plays (Monarita, The Collectors, and The Hungriest Woman in the World) have appeared in juried festivals across the country, among them: New Ideas (Toronto), the Women's Work Festival (St. John's), and Sarasvati FemFest (Winnipeg). Shannon's plays have all been developed in St. John's, Newfoundland, thanks to the Women's Work Festival, where she has returned with a new script-in-progress five times since 2009.

Shannon Bramer's profile page

Sara Tilley is a writer, theatre artist and clown who lives and works in her home town of St. John's, Newfoundland. Her artistic work bridges writing, theatre, and Pochinko Clown Through Mask technique, with each discipline informing and inspiring the others. After graduating with a BFA in Acting from York University, Sara founded a feminist theatre company, She Said Yes!, in 2002, and received the Rhonda Payne Theatre Award in 2006, which acknowledges the contribution of a woman working in theatre in Newfoundland and Labrador. || Her writing spans the genres of playwriting, prose and poetry. She has written, co-written or co-created over ten plays to date, all of which have received professional production. Skin Room, her first novel (Pedlar Press, 2008), won both the Newfoundland and Labrador Percy Janes First Novel Award and the inaugural Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers, and was shortlisted for the Winterset Award and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize. Sara won the Lawrence Jackson Writer's Award from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council in 2011. || In 2008 Sara was awarded a Canada Council for the Arts Professional Development grant to travel to Vancouver for six months to mentor with Pochinko Clown Through Mask co-founder, Ian Wallace. This experience allowed Sara to begin teaching this unique theatre form, making her one of a handful of Pochinko instructors in the world. She regularly offers Clown through Mask and Neutral Mask training, and is also a freelance vocal and movement coach for actors. || Her new novel, Duke (Pedlar Press, 2015), found its inspiration through mask work.

Sara Tilley's profile page