
Lela & Co.





Jenna Harris and Graham Cuthbertson
Photo credit: Dahlia Katz
"Jenna Harris explodes into the character, Lela... There is an urgency to Lynn's
script, which she smartly writes." - Toronto Star
"Shaw stages this with urgency, power and a grip that often makes one want to
look away, but we don't." - Slotkin Review
"Lela, played with clear-eyed commitment by Jenna Harris...it's an effort to drive
home or complicity and willful blindness to the continued existence of sexual
slaves even within our own borders." - The Torontoist
"...even a story as painful as this one can be a thing of beauty." - The Charming Modernist
"I wanted to punch Graham Cuthbertson in the face for 90% of the play, and I
mean that as the highest compliment." - Mooney on Theatre
First produced in 2015 at the Royal Court Theatre in London, Lela & Co. is a timely and gut-wrenching play about women’s worth in a capitalist world.
And as for what came next, things unspoken and untold until now, Lela's story untold in its entirety, it happened like this...
Based on a true story, Lela & Co. gives space for a woman to be able to tell her story of being brought into sex trafficking by her husband during a time of war. Starting off as a seemingly innocuous telling by Lela of her childhood, Lela & Co. dives headfirst into this while also exploring “truth” in storytelling, who gets to tell whose story, and the resiliency of the human spirit.
Director: Melissa-Jane Shaw
Featuring: Jenna Harris and Graham Cuthbertson
Scenographer: Claire Hill
Lighting Designer: Jazz Kamal
Sound Designer: Verne Good
Stage Manager: Laurie Merredew
Production Manager: Pip Bradford
Associate Producer and Education Coordinator: Brittany Kay
Running Time 100min
The Theatre Centre BMO Incubator, 1115 Queen Street West
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
This play contains mature language and subject matter, gun and war sound effects and sexual violence, including simulated violence against women. Recommended for 16+.



