Skip to main content
Tom Patterson Theatre
August 6 – September 28 |
Opens August 21
Modern

RANSACKING TROY


By Erin Shields

Directed by Jackie Maxwell

A Stratford Festival Commission

World Première 


“THE WOMEN STANDING BESIDE YOU POSSESS A BRAVERY THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN.” 

Everyone knows the story of the Trojan War: Trojan boy elopes with married Greek girl; angry husband tracks the lovers to the boy’s hometown; 10 years of siege warfare later, the angry husband and his posse reduce Troy to rubble. But did it have to end that way? In Ransacking Troy, playwright Erin Shields imagines a less testosterone-fuelled conclusion, in which the women of Greece—tired of waiting for their husbands to return from war—stage an intervention of historical proportions.



The 2025 Season is supported by Ophelia Lazaridis.


Production Co-Sponsors:

Marilyn Gropp

Jane Fryman Laird

Dr. Robert J. & Roberta Sokol

Anonymous Donor


 


Photo Credit  Maev Beaty and Irene Poole. Photography by Ted Belton.

CAST & CREATIVE

CAST

    Portrait of Maev Beaty
    Maev Beaty
    Penelope, Odysseus

    2025: Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables and Penelope, Odysseus in Ransacking Troy. Ninth season. Stratford: Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), Annabelle (Wedding Band), Gertrude (Hamlet), Jane (Death and the King's Horseman), Cookie (The Front Page), Elmire (Tartuffe), Sneerwell (The School for Scandal), Sorrel (Bunny), Kate (The Last Wife), Kate Hardcastle (She Stoops to Conquer), Goneril (King Lear). Elsewhere: My Name is Lucy Barton (Canadian Stage); Letters from Max, The Great Fire (Necessary Angel); August: Osage County, Little Menace: Pinter (Soulpepper); Terminus (Outside the March/Mirvish); Wide Awake Hearts (Tarragon); over 30 Canadian premières including her co-creations Montparnasse, Goblin Market and Secret Life of a Mother (Playwrights Canada Press). Awards: Multiple Dora-winner, 14-time nominee. Film/TV: Beau is Afraid (dir. Ari Aster), Mouthpiece (dir. Patricia Rozema), Murdoch Mysteries. Online: maevbeaty.com. Et cetera: For Esmé, and all my Sirens, Witches and Queens. 

    Portrait of Irene Poole
    Irene Poole
    Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Agamemnon

    2025: Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Agamemnon in Ransacking Troy and understudy in Anne of Green Gables. 12th season. Stratford: Pisanio in Cymbeline, Morag in The Diviners, Thérèse Dubuc in Les Belles-Soeurs, Marmee in Little Women, Interpreter in All's Well…, Katherine in Henry VIII, Catalina in Mother's Daughter, Jean Louise in To Kill a Mockingbird, Cassius in Julius Caesar, Breath of Kings, Kate in The Little Years, Katherina in Taming of the Shrew, Olga in Three Sisters. Elsewhere: Bakelite Masterpiece, The Little Years (Dora Award, Tarragon); Leisure Society (Dora Award, Factory Theatre); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Dora Award, Birdland); Happy Place, The Gigli Concert (Soulpepper); How Do I Love Thee? (Canadian Rep); Manon, Sandra and the Virgin Mary (Buddies…). Film/TV: Frankie Drake, Salvation, Indian Horse, Cardinal, Reign, Murdoch Mysteries, Republic of Doyle. Et cetera: For my Labrador family.

    Portrait of Yanna McIntosh
    Yanna McIntosh
    Hecuba

    2025: Paulina in The Winter's Tale and Hecuba in Ransacking Troy. 13th season. Yanna McIntosh is one of Canada's preeminent stage actors, acclaimed for her dramatic range and intensity. Training at Vaughan Road Collegiate, University of Toronto, and Harvard's American Repertory Theatre Institute grounded numerous stage highlights, among them, The Master Plan (Crow's), Ruined (Obsidian), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (San Francisco), The Baroness and the Pig (Shaw), Hedda Gabler (Volcano), Skylight (Tarragon) and leading roles in Stratford productions of Antony and Cleopatra, Oedipus, Macbeth, Elektra, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, A Little Night Music, The Winter's Tale and Trojan Women. Recent screen credits include Slasher: Hell Motel (AMC), Beyond Black Beauty (Amazon), Good Sam (CBS); Pretty Hard Cases (Global), Sort Of (CBC). Yanna is Icil Morgan's daughter. Et cetera: To Marti, for all my firsts.

    Portrait of Sara Topham
    Sara Topham
    Aegiale, Helen

    2025: Hermione in The Winter's Tale and Aegiale, Helen in Ransacking Troy. 16th season. Stratford (selected): Hedda in Hedda Gabler, Shakespeare's Juliet, Olivia, Cordelia, Jessica, Rosalind; Elizabeth/Robyn (Serving Elizabeth), Ruth (Blithe Spirit), Célimène (The Misanthrope), Wendy (Peter Pan), Madame de Tourvel (Dangerous Liaisons), Gwendolyn (The Importance of Being Earnest), Laurencia (Fuente Ovejuna), Mabel (An Ideal Husband) Laura (The Glass Menagerie) Brooke Ashton (Noises Off)Broadway: Cecily in Travesties, Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest, Sally in the original Broadway company of Tom Stoppard's LeopoldstadtOff Broadway:  Beatrice-Joanna in The Changeling. In the UK: Love Me Do (Dorothy), Intimate Apparel (Mrs. Van Buren). Elsewhere: Two seasons at the Shaw Festival playing the title role in Saint Joan and Ann Whitfield in Man And Superman, Beatrice at The Old Globe, Titania and Ariel at The Shakespeare Theatre (DC) and appearances on many other stages worldwide.

    Portrait of Helen Belay
    Helen Belay
    Electra

    (she/her)

    2025: Josie Pye in Anne of Green Gables and Electra in Ransacking Troy. Stratford debut. Elsewhere: Perfect on Paper, White Taffeta Silk (TIFT); Come Home: The Legend of Daddy Hall (Tarragon Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest, Jane Eyre, The Fiancée, Heaven (Citadel Theatre); The 39 Steps (County Stage Company); Heaven (National Arts Centre); The Wonderful (Caravan Farm Theatre); King Lear, Queen Goneril (Soulpepper Theatre Company); Here There Be Night (WWPT); The Blue Hour (SkirtsAFire Festival); The Society for the Destitute Presents Titus Bouffonius (Theatre Network); Cinderella (Globe Theatre); Vidalia (Teatro Live!) Film/TV: Dark Nature (Almost Forever Prod.); Abracadavers (Mind Engine Ent.). Training: University of Alberta, BFA Acting. Awards: 2022 AMPIA Award for Best Female Performance, Abracadavers. Online: @helubee. Et cetera: Endless thanks to my loved ones, agent, and anyone and everyone that's ever plucked up the courage to tell a story.
    Portrait of Sarah Dodd
    Sarah Dodd
    Gaylax, Anax, Andromache

    2025: Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables and Gaylax, Anax, Andromache in Ransacking Troy. 14th season. Stratford (selected): Maria (Twelfth Night), Sian Ap Dafydd (1939), Mollie Malloy (The Front Page), Sin (Paradise Lost), Dr. Livesey (Treasure Island), Miss Prism (The Importance of Being Earnest), Lady Anne (Richard III), Electra (Electra, The Flies), Sibyl (Private Lives) and Lady Macduff (Macbeth). Elsewhere (selected): The Antipodes, Marjorie Prime (Coal Mine); Mustard, The Small Room at the Top of the Stairs, Communion, The Fall, Humble Boy (Tarragon); Domesticated, A Whistle in the Dark, Marion Bridge (Company Theatre); Age of Arousal, The Penelopiad (Nightwood); Terminus (Outside the March/Centaur/Belfry). Film/TV: Priscilla, Hudson and Rex, Anne with an E, Titans, Ginny & Georgia. Awards: Two Dora Awards with four nominations, a Toronto Critics' Award and a Jerry.

    Portrait of Ijeoma Emesowum
    Ijeoma Emesowum
    Psamathe, Briseis

    Birmingham Conservatory, 2015/2016

    2025: Psamathe, Briseis in Ransacking Troy and understudy in Anne of Green Gables. Ninth season. Stratford: Mattie in Wedding Band, Linda Lauzon in Les Belles-Soeurs, Much Ado About Nothing, Guildenstern in Hamlet, Co-host of Showstarters, Tituba in The Crucible, Death and the King's Horseman, The Neverending Story, As You Like It, Love's Labour's Lost, Hay Fever. Elsewhere: Death and the King's Horseman Radio Play (Soulpepper); Romeo & Juliet (Spontaneous Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Theatre New Brunswick); five seasons with Shaw Festival including Major Barbara, Serious Money, Ragtime, Born Yesterday; Binti's Journey (Theatre Direct); The Aftermath (Nightwood Theatre); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare in High Park, Canadian Stage). Film/TV: Murdoch Mysteries, Hamlet (2022), Death and the King's Horseman, Love's Labour's Lost, Hamlet, Macbeth, Timon of Athens (Stratfest@Home). Training: Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre; BFA, University of Windsor. Et cetera: To my loves J, Z and S. 

    Portrait of Katarina Fiallos
    Katarina Fiallos
    Understudy

    (she/her) Birmingham Conservatory, 2025/2026

    2025: Mopsa in The Winter's Tale and understudy in Ransacking Troy. Stratford debut. Elsewhere: Mia in Gringas (First Born Theatre), Dorine in La Bête (Talk is Free Theatre), Lisa in Wakey Wakey (County Players), Chloe in Hookman (TMU), Bianca in Untamed (TMU). Directing: Morning After (a front company/Toronto Fringe Festival), ECHO (associate director - a front company), The Zoo Story (co-director - a front company). Writing: Morning After. Training: Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Performance. Online: www.katarinafiallos.com, @katarinafiallos. Et cetera: Thank you to my family, friends, and the team at NCA for everything!
    Portrait of Caitlyn MacInnis
    Caitlyn MacInnis
    Cur, Hecamede, Polyxena

    (they/them)

    2025: Dorcas in The Winter's Tale and Cur, Hecamede, Polyxena in Ransacking Troy. Stratford debut. Elsewhere: Ida Jackson in The Amen Corner, Ensemble/Dainty June understudy in Gypsy, Ensemble/Judy Haynes understudy in White Christmas, Ensemble in Damn Yankees, Ensemble in Chitra, Zoe in Bright Lights (DWP) (Shaw Festival); Jasmine/Dance Captain in BeeHive (Drayton Entertainment); Veruca Salt/Dance Captain in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, It's A Wonderful Life (Young People's Theatre); Rosa Mundi in Concord Floral, Who Are You?, Tiny Tenements of Terror (Theatre Sheridan). Film: Lead in Something Bubbled, Something Blue (Talk Is Free). Training: Sheridan College Honours Bachelor of Music Theatre. Online: @caitlynmacinnis. Etcetera: Caitlyn dedicates their debut to the women who raised them. For mom and grandma Norma. Big love to the Festival and the artists, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

    Portrait of Marissa Orjalo
    Marissa Orjalo
    Hermione, Menelaus, Chrysies, Cyclops

    Birmingham Conservatory, 2024

    2025: Perdita in The Winter's Tale and Hermione, Menelaus, Chryseis, Cyclops in Ransacking Troy. Third season. Stratford: Grace Harkaway in London Assurance, Twelfth Night, Juliet understudy in Romeo and Juliet, Lise Paquette in Les Belles-Soeurs, Cordelia understudy in King Lear. Elsewhere: Lucky by Marie Barlizo (rEvolver); Hermia in A (Musical) Midsummer Night's Dream (Driftwood Theatre); Lucky in FEARLESS by David Yee (fu-GEN Theatre); Olivia in Twelfth Night (Theatre Erindale). Film/TV:Eli Roth's Be Mine, 13: The Musical, Titans season 4, Daughter Dearest, ReGenesis. Audio/Voiceover: Anne of Green Gables. Playwriting: twice blessed (fu-GEN Theatre). Awards: Joseph-Armand Bombardier SSHRC Award (University of Toronto); Douglas Campbell Award (Stratford Festival); Dora Mavor Moore Award (Stratford Festival). Training: Birmingham Conservatory, 2024; Theatre and Drama Studies with Sheridan College; University of Toronto (MA). Online: www.marissaorjalo.com, @MarissaOrjalo. Et cetera: Gratitude always to Carlos Bulosan Theatre and fu-GEN Theatre.

    Portrait of Krystin Pellerin
    Krystin Pellerin
    Understudy

    2025: Appears in The Winter's Tale and understudy in Ransacking Troy. Fourth season. Stratford: Diana in Casey and Diana, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Maggie in Bunny, Joyce in Possible Worlds. Elsewhere: Electra in Orestes (Tarragon); Cathleen in Long Day's Journey Into Night, Debbie in The Real Thing, Emily in Our Town, Mary Snow in Salt-Water Moon (Soulpepper); Nellie in Floyd Collins (Patrick St. Productions/Talk Is Free); Carol in Oleanna (Sweetline Theatre). Film/TV: Anne Boleyn in Reign (CW). Series lead: Leslie Bennett in Republic of Doyle, Murdoch Mysteries (CBC). The Tudors (Showtime/CBC), Hudson & Rex (CityTV). Training: National Theatre School of Canada. Awards: Canadian Screen Award nomination: Best Actress in a Dramatic Series, Republic of Doyle. Jessie Award nomination: Best Supporting Actress in a Musical, Floyd Collins. Online: Instagram: @krystinpellerin. Et cetera: Big love to my beautiful family xo.

CREATIVE

    Jackie Maxwell
    Director

    2025: Director of Ransacking Troy. Third season. Jackie is a celebrated Canadian director, artistic director, dramaturge and teacher. She has directed for theatres across the country including the Stratford Festival (Paradise Lost, The Changeling), Tarragon, Citadel, Soulpepper, Canadian Stage, Mirvish, Theatre Calgary, Coalmine and Centaur, Montreal, as well as several theatres in the United States. Jackie served as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival for 14 seasons, 2002-2016. She directed over 25 productions there. She also created a new performance space to include and promote provocative contemporary plays in Shaw's programming. It has since been named the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre. Jackie was AD at Factory Theatre from 1987-1995. She has been awarded the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, two Honorary Doctorates and has received two Dora Mavor Moore awards for Direction.

    Judith Bowden
    Set and Costume Designer

    2025: Set and costume designer of Ransacking Troy. Fourth season. Stratford: Set designer of King Lear, designer of Paradise Lost and costume designer of The Changeling. Elsewhere (selected): Set and costume design: Othello (Royal Shakespeare Company); Paradise Lost (Centaur Theatre); The Humans (Citadel Theatre/Canadian Stage); London Road, The Other Place (Canadian Stage); Sense and Sensibility (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre); Chimerica (M.T.C./Canadian Stage); The Applecart, Playboy of the Western World, White Christmas, Gaslight, Holiday Inn, Ladykillers, Grand Hotel, Saint Joan, Sweeney Todd (Shaw Festival). Costume design: Queen Goneril and King Lear (Soulpepper Theatre); Junk, Watch on the Rhine, My Fair Lady (Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.); Secret Garden, Cabaret (Shaw Festival). Set design: Desire Under the Elms (Shaw Festival).  

    Michael Walton
    Lighting Designer

    2025: Head of Design for the Stratford Festival and lighting designer of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Winter's Tale and Ransacking Troy. 21st season. Stratford (selected): Chicago, Richard III, Billy Elliot, Little Shop of Horrors, Birds of a Kind, Rocky Horror, The Music Man, The Tempest, Guys and Dolls, The School for Scandal, Macbeth, A Chorus Line, Hamlet, The Sound of Music, Oedipus Rex, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Fiddler on the Roof, The Matchmaker, Twelfth Night. Elsewhere: Piaf/Deitrich (Mirvish); Bluebeard's Castle (COC, 2022); Così Fan Tutte (Israeli Opera, COC); Il Trittico, Jenufa, Maria Stuarda, Albert Herring (Pacific Opera Victoria); A Doll's House Part 2 (RMTC/Mirvish); Kiss Me Kate, Beautiful, Grease (Drayton); The Humans (Citadel/Canadian Stage); A Word or Two with Christopher Plummer (CTG/Stratford, Los Angeles); Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Sideways (La Jolla Playhouse); Chimerica (RMTC/Canadian Stage).

    Deanna H. Choi
    Composer

    2025: Composer of Ransacking Troy. Third season. Stratford: A Wrinkle in Time, Paradise Lost. Elsewhere: Deanna has sound designed and composed original music for over 100 stage and screen productions across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. with companies including Soulpepper, Tarragon, Canadian Stage, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Neptune Theatre, Grand Theatre, Shaw Festival, and many others. Recent highlights include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Mirvish/Neptune), The Darkest Dark (YPT), and The Importance of Being Earnest (Citadel). Proud member of IATSE ADC 659. Film/TV: Gray; The Nature of Things; Relax, I'm From the Future. Awards: Two Dora Awards (five nominations), Pauline McGibbon Award, SOCAN Foundation Award. Online: @deanna.h.choi. Et cetera: For Kim Renders who directed my first Erin Shields production and showed me a life in theatre was possible.

    Thomas Ryder Payne
    Sound Designer

    2025: Composer and sound designer of As You Like It and sound designer of Ransacking Troy. 15th season. Stratford: More than 25 productions since 2009. Elsewhere: Designs for Mirvish, BIBT, Soulpepper, Shaw, Canadian Stage, Tarragon, NAC, Blyth Festival, RMTC, Theatre Calgary, GCTC, Nightwood, Modern Times, Aluna, Crow's and many others. Film: Plain View, 7A, Blood Harvest, Hero.Traitor.Patriot, Alegra & Jim, Robert's Circle. Training: Studied composition with James Tenney, Honours BA, York University. Awards: Six Dora Awards for Sound Design and Composition. Et cetera: Started as a songwriter with a four-track tape machine and still endlessly fascinated with the storytelling possibilities of layered sound. Online: thomasryderpayne.bandcamp.com, xeno-canto.org/contributor/NWXCLJYBDK.

    Esie Mensah
    Choreographer

    (she/her)

    2025: Choreographer of Ransacking Troy. Stratford debut. Elsewhere: Treemonisha: A Musical Reimagining (Choreographer, Harris Theatre, US Première); Three Sisters (Choreographer, Soulpepper Theatre/Obsidian Theatre); Treemonisha: A Musical Reimagining (Volcano Theatre/Luminato Festival/TOLive); Russian Play, Victory, 1837: Farmer's Revolt (Movement Director, Shaw Festival); Serving Elizabeth (Director, Theatre Aquarius); Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Movement Director, Soulpepper/Obsidian Theatre); TEDxToronto Speaker (TED Talks). Film/TV: Canada's Got Talent: Million Dollar Season (Choreographer, CityTV); Pretty Hard Cases (Choreographer, CBC); Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's do the Time Warp Again (dancer, FOXTV); Camp Rock 2 (dancer, Disney). Training: George Brown College. Awards: Arts Awards - John Holland Awards, Dance Educator of the Year, 100 Accomplished Black Women, Best Contemporary Dance Act. Online: www.esiemensah.com.

PLAY SCHEDULE

Take advantage of various special deals to save on tickets!
Wed, Aug 06
2:00 PM
Thu, Aug 07
8:00 PM
Sun, Aug 10
2:00 PM
Wed, Aug 13
8:00 PM
Thu, Aug 14
2:00 PM
Fri, Aug 15
8:00 PM
Sun, Aug 17
2:00 PM
Wed, Aug 20
2:00 PM
Thu, Aug 21
8:00 PM
Sat, Aug 23
8:00 PM
Wed, Aug 27
8:00 PM
Thu, Aug 28
8:00 PM
Fri, Aug 29
2:00 PM

TOM PATTERSON THEATRE  
To find out more about all our theatres, please visit the Theatre Maps & Guides page.