Cambridge playwright Taylor Marie Graham draws from her rural upbringing to bring her characters to life

Growing up in rural Huron County surrounded by women inspired Taylor Marie Graham to write plays about them. 

She's an award-winning playwright, director, and author from Cambridge, and her plays range from comedies to dramas.

She recently released a book called Cottage Radio and Other Plays and spoke to CBC K-W's The Morning Edition host Craig Norris about it.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Audio of the interview can be found at the bottom of this article.

Craig Norris: So how did this come to be? Why did you want to write plays about rural women in southwestern Ontario?

Taylor Marie Graham: Well, I guess the easiest answer to that is it's where I'm from. So being from Huron County, growing up with these women, they inspired me.

And when I started to write theatre, I decided, you know, who do I know best? These are the women. They inspire me. I'm going to put them on the page in a way that I don't necessarily always see them on the page.

Craig Norris: So these are plays that have already been done on stage, right? So why turn them into a book now?

Taylor Marie Graham: Yeah. Well, one of the really nice things about theatre is it's this ethereal sort of art form. It exists once you're there in the audience, you get to experience this thing that everybody's there to experience together, and then it's gone.

But theatre can exist on the page, too. It used to be really popular to read plays. It used to be part of the everyday culture. And I love reading plays. It's one of my favourite things to do. So getting to put these together into a collection, really it's a dream come true.

Craig Norris: Right, when you think about all of us studying Shakespeare in high school, that's what we were reading. Sometimes you forgot that we were reading plays. When we look at plays, like Cottage Radio, that's a drama. White Wedding, though, is a comedy. 

How do you do that? I mean, how do you go back and forth between genres? Or do you come up with characters first and that informs it, or how does that work?

Taylor Marie Graham: Yeah, well, I mean, Cottage Radio for me was really inspired by the tornado that hit Goderich in 2011. So because I'm from that community, I was living in Toronto at the time [and] doing my masters.

And so I wasn't there when it happened. And so in my mind, I was really asking these questions, you know, what does home mean, right? And what does it mean for the folks that are there right now? What does it mean to be away from that community right now?

And so that really drove that story. Because again, everybody that I know in rural communities really has this beautiful, hilarious side to them. There's definitely comedy in there. But because the root of this story is that tornado, that one felt like it should be a drama for sure.

Craig Norris: The third play in the book is called Post Alice. Now this is interesting given the recent revelations around Alice Munro's life. Talk a bit about that play and what it means now and how it holds up in terms of telling the stories in a Post Alice era.

Taylor Marie Graham: Yeah, the meaning of that title has changed a lot in the last few months. I originally had this play produced in 2021 at the Here for Now Festival in Stratford. I took four of my favourite Alice Munro protagonists and put them into a new narrative sort of in my version of Huron County. And also looked at the true story of Misty Murray, a girl who went missing from the Goderich region in the mid 90s.

And I put this story and these women around a campfire for one night to really have these revelations, these moments of connection, these hilarious moments, and then also dig into some of the dark histories that exist when thinking about rural women and assaults and these sorts of bigger questions.

And so now when I think about this play, you know, it's the meaning. There's just sort of this parallel meaning now with Munro, herself and her own life. And I've sort of been trying to leave some room for Andrea Skinner's story to be told and really trying to think about the ways people have been reacting to that story.

But for me, I keep going back to the local and really asking questions about rural women and the fact that Alice Munro, who wrote so eloquently about these issues, you know, couldn't help her own daughter and what that means, right. And sort of the big questions that leaves us and some folks in the community like Rachel Hamler, who's a really great young journalist out of Wingham, who's from the same town that Alice Munro was from.

She's been asking those same questions and sort of looking to my play to try to unpack it. I'm glad that it's useful right now. I'm still trying to understand all of it myself. 

Craig Norris: I was just going to ask you that. I mean, you share geography in a way with Alice Monro as well. And I was wondering where you landed on it or had you landed on yet? I guess you haven't landed anywhere yet.

Taylor Marie Graham: Yeah, when I think about Andrea Skinner's story, it's a surprise and not a surprise. I know so many families that have similar stories embedded in their own families. And I am just really happy that we're finally kind of talking about this at a larger scale so that we can address this. Maybe in some of those families, maybe they'll feel like they can start talking about this.

Craig Norris: Taylor, what's next for you? Any plays coming up?

Taylor Marie Graham: Yeah. Last year I had a play called Corporate Finch that was produced in a few Ontario festivals. We're taking it to Edmonton in August, which will be fun. Yeah, and that play is also being published in the fall too. 

Listen | Author chat with Taylor Marie Graham:

The Morning Edition - K-W6:59Author chat: Taylor Marie Graham on why she loves writing about strong, resilient and hilarious women

Southwestern Ontario is rich with complex history of the people who live there but their stories aren't often told. One playwright has been working to change that. Taylor Marie Graham writes plays that depict rural life and has recently brought together a collection of her plays for a book. She joined The Morning Edition to talk about her new book, Cottage Radio and Other Plays.