Conversations with Creators: Tereasa Maillie

Consistent. Playful. Honest.

Three words that describe our co-writer and producer, Tereasa Maillie’s artistic practise.

Tereasa is an award-winning writer and historian. And her not-so-secret life in Calgary's theatre scene started out 25 years ago as an assistant stage manager sweeping up pine needles every night.

After that, Tereasa moved onto everything technical including many years as a sound designer. This time she has put on the creative hat in co-writing an adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. We chatted with Tereasa about the writing process for this piece.

What was the writing process like?

“When I was approached to join this team, I was really excited to do something very different - fully produce a stage play in less than 5 months, and in a team environment. I’d done co-writing but this was more collaborative. Adapting such a well-known play was also a challenge - deciding what to keep and what would not translate to a modern audience.”

What have you kept from the original play?

“We kept Ibsen’s original focus: questioning the traditional roles of men and women, the continued acceptance that all women want children, and that women cannot be themselves in modern society. Nora is that woman: unsure of who she actually is as she always has the perfection screen up around her.”

Any challenges ?

“The play challenged me about how the life many people live now is not a sustainable one: like Nora, there has to be a sense of who you are, what you enjoy outside of your roles and relationships. In Canada, so many young women live with artifice and lack of depth which leaves them and society around them empty. Her emptiness freaks me out a bit - because it’s not fiction, it’s reality for many people.”

A Doll’s House: Wild Rose premieres April 5th at Motel Theatre, Arts Commons. Tickets are available at diytheatre.org/a-dolls-house

More about Tereasa:

Tereasa recently ended her tenure as President of Sage Theatre, where she was part of the team that received the Calgary Heritage Authority’s Lion Award for Advocacy and Awareness in 2018. Her most recently produced plays were featured in Give Me 10 Minutes – a ten minute play festival Calgary in 2016. She is currently writing two new plays slated for production later in 2019 and in 2020.