With razor-sharp acuity and snappy language, Dayboil centres on a community in crisis––a kitchen-table comedy that quickly takes a dark turn.

Four middle-aged women meet at Kathy’s house in rural Newfoundland for their weekly cup of tea and gossip when tragic news disrupts their usual banter: Kathy’s husband has killed himself. Abruptly, the threads that hold their comfortable community life together begin to snap, and they find themselves exposed by the unravelling of their social fabric.

Darkly funny and deeply touching, Dayboil explores the rigidity of gender roles that prevent men from seeking help and lock women into caretaking positions, as well as the emotional and physical fallout that can result.

Sharon King-Campbell is a theatre and literary artist based in Ktaqmkuk, colonially known as Newfoundland. She was the 2017 recipient of the Rhonda Payne Award, was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2020, and is a four-time winner of the Arts and Letters Awards in fiction, dramatic script, and poetry. Her collection of poetry, This is How It is, was published in 2021. Her plays Original and Give Me Back have reached audiences throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and mainland Canada.

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