THEY SAY Will Open at West Village Theatre

Fresh off an eight-award night at this August's Calgary Community Theatre Awards, Full Circle Theatre will return to Messina with They Say, Megan Baldrey's brand-new, Bridgerton-inspired prequel to Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Full Circle received six awards for The Taming of the Shrew, including Outstanding Production of a Play. Power Play received two, including Outstanding Original Script or Adaptation. Outstanding Supporting Actor winner Ben Gaudet returns in They Say as Borachio.

The seed for They Say is hiding in the quarto of Much Ado, which contains two stage directions mentioning Leonato's wife, Innogen. She has no dialogue and Shakespeare offers no explanation of who she is. Full Circle Theatre had to find out.

Messina is reeling from Leonato's sudden wedding, Queen Annabella is determined to find her son a wife, a gossip is on the loose, and Hero has made a decision: she will not marry until Beatrice does. When Benedick offers to help make Beatrice more marriageable, private lessons and public gossip begin to collide.

Ensuring that no secret stays private is the mysterious Lady Goodword. Her society dispatches are delivered through a female voiceover inspired by Gossip Girl and Bridgerton, turning private desires into public stories. In a world where rumour can protect one person while destroying another, They Say asks who gets to tell the story and who pays the cost.

Directed by Erin Weir, They Say brings Full Circle's signature mix of wit, romance, heartgripping moments, and emotional mess to Regency Britaly. (Yes, that is a portmanteau of 'Britain' and 'Italy'.) Fans of Bridgerton, Gossip Girl, enemies-to-lovers, and Shakespeare can expect gossip, yearning, swordplay, scandal, and one very important question: who is Lady Goodword?