Carolyn Guillet’s “Seventeen [Anonymous] Women”: Public Reading and Book Launch

Seventeen women gather around the metaphorical fire of a lit theatrical stage to tell their stories, to dip their ladles into the bubbling stew-pot of humanity’s collective tales, some new, some old. They sing, they suffer, they laugh, they cry. Feisty, angry, whimsical, and forgiving, they obey the ancient dramatic imperative to act out life’s most challenging obstacles, crises, revelations, and transformations, for their benefit and for ours. In the same way a painter moves towards the light, they stumble and grope and feel their way towards joy, taking us with them. Seventeen women, seventeen stories, seventeen juicy spiritual journeys for hungry souls. The premiere production of this vibrant, playful and evocative theatrical text has been described by Ray Conlogue (former theatre critic Globe & Mail) as “Brilliant… Funny & Sexy”, and by Jim Burke (theatre critic for Montreal’s Gazette) as “sublime”.