Julie, a young Jamaican Canadian screenwriter, is passionately working on an adaptation of one of the most beloved American novels of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird, telling the story from the perspective of the Finch family’s Black maid, Calpurnia. But within the safe confines of her wealthy father’s home, and besides all the encouragement from their Filipina housekeeper Precy, Julie struggles with writer’s block and numerous distractions as her family prepares for an important dinner party. When her brother challenges her, saying she’s appropriating a culture she doesn’t belong to, she goes to dramatic lengths to prove her point, only to find she has much to learn.

Calpurnia is a witty and highly charged look at the complicated entanglements of intersectionality and allyship, exposing motives and biases that are clear as a bell one moment, and drowning in ambiguity the next.

Audrey Dwyer is a multi-disciplinary artist with over twenty years of experience working as an actor, director, playwright, teacher, artistic director, facilitator, and mentor. In 2018, Audrey Dwyer was named one of the eighteen artists to watch by NOW Magazine. That year, her play Calpurnia became a box-office hit on the Toronto scene. Calpurnia was named one of the five hottest tickets in Canada across the country by The Globe and Mail. Her writing includes The D Cut, an award-winning six-episode series on Crave and Shaftesbury Film’s KindaTV YouTube channel. She was one of the winners of the CBC Creative Relief Fund to create a television pilot called The Gordons. She has been commissioned by the Tarragon Theatre to write Come Home—The Legend of Daddy Hall. Her libretto Backstage at Carnegie Hall was recently produced in Montreal. She’s been commissioned by Nightswimming Theatre to write The Generations, an epic five-hour drama about the legacy of a Black family over many thousands of years. She graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada.

Audrey Dwyer's profile page

“Calpurnia is one of those stories that is deeply nuanced and provides much fodder for discussion and debate. It is eye-opening and reveals much about prejudices and ingrained privilege that, in some way, exists in everyone.”

Samantha Wu, Mooney on Theatre

“Calpurnia is a romp of a play with a biting commentary on race, class, and privilege. I remember seeing it during its premiere run in a packed house at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. But moreover, I remember the conversations, reverberations, and discoveries in the days and weeks well after I had left the theatre. In the context of Canadian theatre, I think it is a milestone in the canon that is not only contemporary and challenging but fearless and hilarious too.”

Marie Beath Badian, author of The Making of St. Jerome and Prairie Nurse

“It’s insightful, hilarious and thoroughly on target in exploring questions of race, privilege and allyship that have become part of the public discourse in recent years.”

Lynn Saxberg, Ottawa Citizen

"Audrey expertly calibrates the humour and debate in Calpurnia to explore the complexities of race and privilege in a surprisingly playful and honest way that kept me on my toes throughout."

Lisa Codrington, author of The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God & Up the Garden Path and Cast Iron

"How is it possible that a single play can simultaneously make you cheer and cringe? Calpurnia is an unforgettable masterpiece crafted by a playwright in her element. Dwyer paints each character into a corner where they are forced to face the most difficult conversations with each other, and, more importantly, with themselves."

Catherine Hernandez, award-winning author of Scarborough the novel and screenwriter of Scarborough the film