Peterborough’s Megan Murphy will have a leading role in the new historical play she has written about the Irish settlers who came to the Peterborough region 200 years ago, which premieres at 4th Line Theatre in Millbrook this summer.
The outdoor theatre company has announced that Murphy will play the role of the narrator in her debut full-length play Wild Irish Geese, which tells the story of impoverished Catholic Irish settlers who came to the Peterborough region in the 1820s under a emigration plan overseen by Peter Robinson, a politician in Upper Canada who represented the riding of York and Simcoe.
Around 2,500 settlers, mostly from County Cork in Ireland, settled in Lanark County, Carleton County (today Ottawa), and Scott’s Plains (later renamed Peterborough). Today, there are thousands of descendants of these settlers living both locally and around the world.
Herself a descendant of the Peter Robinson emigrants, Murphy will be the play’s seanchaí, the Gaelic word for a traditional storyteller or oral historian.
“Storytellers only exist when there are ears to hear their tales,” Murphy says in a media release. “The audience is just as essential as the performers. They are a vital part of the magic. I can’t wait to share this experience with you this summer.”
The play, which has its world premiere at the Winslow Farm in Millbrook from July 29 to August 30, is part of the bicentennial commemoration of the arrival of the first of the Peter Robinson Irish settlers in 1825. Descendants of these settlers are being invited to return to the region this summer to pay homage to their ancestors.
As a playwright, Murphy has been working on Wild Irish Geese for almost two years. Last January, audiences got a preview of the play when Murphy and several actors including 4th Line Theatre founder Robert Winslow, M. John Kennedy, Jonathan Cullen, Kelsey Powell, Hilary Wear, and more did two free public readings of excerpts from the play.
A seasoned performer, Murphy is no stranger to 4th Line Theatre, having appeared in the summer 2022 production of Maja Ardal’s Wishful Seeing. The prior summer, Murphy and musician Kate Suhr also presented The Verandah Society in Residence at 4th Line Theatre.
Wild Irish Geese will be directed by Kim Blackwell, 4th Line’s managing artistic director.
“I am absolutely thrilled to work with Meg as both a playwright and an actor this summer,” Blackwell says. “She is the perfect person to play the keeper and teller of community stories in Wild Irish Geese.”
Wild Irish Geese will run at 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays from July 29 to August 30, with preview nights on July 23 and 30 and opening night on July 31, and an added Monday performance on August 25.
Tickets and gift certificates are available by phone at 705-932-4445 (toll-free at 1-800-814-0055), online at 4thlinetheatre.on.ca, and at 4th Line Theatre’s Box Office location at 9 Tupper Street in Millbrook (open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays).
