Tramore Productions Inc. is gearing up for its 11th season this weekend, with their new original play, “Come Here Til I Tells Ya.”
The play scheduled to debut Saturday, July 24 at the Cuslett Arts Centre deals with the issue of elder abuse. The play was funded by the New Horizons for Seniors and brings awareness of these issues to light.
Agnes Walsh, author and director of “Come Here Til I Tells Ya,” has been researching and writing this play for the past six months.
“(The Seniors Resource Centre) were really helpful in the sense that I ran some ideas past them and they thought those ideas were really good and (suggested) things to get out. It’s about someone being emotionally abused and she’s also emotionally abusing (a family member). She’s in this really unhealthy dynamic with a member of her family. It’s really hard to break the dynamic and I really thought that was an interesting point of view - a dysfunctional family situation that neither one of the people can get out of, they are both really dependant on it in lot of ways. That’s the core of it,” explains Walsh.
When researching Walsh found that she wasn’t satisfied with a lot of the information.
“I did some research on the Internet, and I had read another play about abuse that I didn’t really enjoy all that much. I didn’t think that it had a good enough balance of both sadness and reality and humour and that was kind of important. I just did some research on my own and a lot of it came from my own head my own imagination. Maybe little tid bits of things I read about or people talked,” Walsh says.
Although this play deals with a serious issue, Walsh thinks that it has a lot of natural humour within the play. Following the production, Tramore is going to have a discussion and question and answer session with the audience to talk about elder abuse. Arlene Morrissey, Tramore’s coordinator, thinks that performing a play is the best way to make people aware.
“It’s a great way to get the message across because we’re using actors. We are showing what could happen. So we are making people aware (about various issues).” - Arlene Morrissey
“It’s a great way to get the message across because we’re using actors. We are showing what could happen. So we are making people aware (about various issues),” says Morrissey.
Tramore Productions Inc drama troupe is not new to the stage. They have been working together since 1999. They are based in the community of Cuslett. Other plays they have performed are Answer Me Home, The City of Port Lance, A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday, Just Ask Rosie, Riders to the Sea, Chasin’ Cripple, A Family of Strangers, and First View of the Sea. This drama troupe has been very successful thus far. Other than performing a number of shows every summer, they have also traveled to the stage in Ireland.
“(There is a lot of) Irish ancestry here, so we want to be able to show the connection between Newfoundland and Ireland and the people that came to Ireland from this area. Our troupe was invited to Ireland to perform so we actually went back to Tramore in Waterford.”
The Newfoundland-Irish ancestry can be seen in the story of Tramore’s name.
“Our name comes from what was believed to be the first settler in Little Barasway, Thomas Foley. There were two Thomas Foley’s out here. So to differentiate between them, they named one fella from the community where he came from, they used to call him Tramore. So we decided to take his name,” says Walsh.
This year their troupe consists of Agnes Walsh as artistic director, Arlene Morrissey as coordinator, Mildred Dohey as an actress, Frederick O’Keefe is student entertainer and Gabrielle Coffey is working as stage manager. They are a non-profit arts organization dedicated to informing the public on the cultural history of the Cape Shore and Placentia Bay area.
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