Two families, four languages, one house. Home puts its characters into a unique and challenging conflict across language and history and asks difficult questions about the illusion of ownership and the definition of "home". Home is the story of an aging man, Toomas, exiled from his homeland, who through repatriation efforts, can now return and reclaim his home and property. However, fifty-five years have passed and the home has been inhabited by three women, who, caught in the shifting tides of a new world of globalization, find themselves threatened with expulsion when Toomas and his son, Wendall, return to reclaim the land and house. The women who have lived in this adopted country and in this house for so long, feel suddenly rootless. Home explores our deep connection to home, not just as place, but memory and language, our sense of identity.

A multi-award-winning writer, Colleen Wagner studied arts at the OCAD University, as well as literature and drama at the University of Toronto, and she moves between these art forms. Her writing interests include screenplays, stage plays, poetry, and short fiction. Her produced plays include: The Monument (Playwrights Canada Press), translated into a dozen languages and winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, several Dora Mavor Moore Awards, and a number of inter-national awards; The Morning Bird (Scirocco Drama), produced in English and French; down from heaven (Playwrights Canada Press), nominated for a MECCA Award for Best New Play; and Home (Scirocco Drama). Wagner is a past recipient of a research-creation grant from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council that took her to Africa. Her documentary play, The Living, based on stories of survivors in post-conflict zones, premiered to sold-out audiences at the 2015 SummerWorks Performance Festival at the Theatre Centre’s BMO Incubator for Live Arts in Toronto, and won NOW Magazine’s Jon Kaplan Audience Choice Award and Best Director Award. Wagner has written a number of screenplays, including an adaptation of The Monument; filmed a documentary film about women in post-conflict zones and matriarchal societies, Women Building Peace, winner of the Silver Wave Film Festival’s 2016 Best Documentary Award; and an interactive website based on this research, thelivingplay.com. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in various anthologies, including Acta Victoriana, The Fiddlehead, and dANDelion Magazine. She divides her time between a riverside farm in New Brunswick and downtown Toronto.

Colleen Wagner's profile page