PRIMARY TRUST Takes The Stage At The Grand Theatre

Primary Trust will run on the Grand Theatre's Spriet Stage. Director Cherissa Richards leads the way through the tender, quirky, and Pulitzer Prize-winning pages of Playwright Eboni Booth in this all-new, London-made production. 

Primary Trust is one of those stories that grabs you. Kenneth leads a very simple life. And at the same time, what he has faced – and continues to face – is complex, personal, hard to believe. You'll catch yourself laughing with Kenneth and Bert over mai tais, shedding both hard and joyful tears, and ultimately cheering along with your whole heart.

"This is my favourite play that I read for the season, and now I am so excited to get to share it with London audiences,” relays Rachel Peake, Artistic Director of the Grand Theatre. “Full of magic realism, humour, and heart, Primary Trust lets you walk in the shoes of someone else in a way that unlocks the world a little differently."

Primary Trust opened Off-Broadway in 2023 with William Jackson Harper (NBC's The Good Place) leading the cast as Kenneth. The play – and Harper's performance – were quickly nominated for a suite of high-profile awards and won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

For the past several months, Booth's celebrated script has been in the hands of theatre artists recruited from across Canada – including director Cherissa Richards, and designers Julie Fox (set), Rachel Forbes (costume), Imogen Wilson (lighting), and Thomas Ryder Payne (sound). Together, they are building “a world that feels like ours, that looks like reality,” explains Peake, “but in fact, is not bound by the laws of physics or time and lives inside an active idea.”

Primary Trust whisks audiences into the styled yet realistic, gritty yet beautiful world of a Tiki Hut regular, Kenneth. “We are taken back to a recent time, but a time before smartphones, in North America – where connection wasn't merely a click away and interpersonal connection took some work,” shares Richards. “We lean into how Eboni Booth explores loneliness and the complicated need for connection."

One ‘happy hour' at a time, the character of Kenneth will unfold on the stage, seemingly set with a life-size diorama. “The characters will step out into a frozen photograph and bring it to life. Surreal, fragmented buildings, slices of evocative settings, signalling to the audience that we are only being let in on part of the story – the rest is in your imagination,” reveals Fox. “There is a tumbleweed feel of boarded-up storefronts and empty spaces that resonates as we continue to come back from the pandemic in our own cities. In this kind of desolate, urban landscape – so typical across North America – we still manage to find beauty and connection, and the unexpectedness makes it that much more special.”

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