TRAGEDY, SLANDER, & WINE By David Volpov

Literally. An actor actually dies onstage.

The media circus pounces on the story, turning the quaint community into a hotspot for true crime tourists. Conspiracy theory junkies brand everyone in the town as a suspect. The finger-pointing grows so rampant that the victim’s sister, Shannon (Mai Stone), can’t even have a healthy relationship with her own mother. Shannon’s longtime friend Alec (Drew Ogle) promises to help Shannon replenish her image in the public eye and shed her status as a pariah. But they find out that manipulating the media is harder than they anticipated. They have to get past power-hungry reporter Penelope (Sophia Paskalidis) and gatekeeping publicist Colin (David Underhill). Soon, Shannon uncovers a secret plot that upends everything she thought she knew about the tragedy.

What really happened to her sister? And can this deadly event repeat?

One of the unique aspects of Tragedy, Slander, & Wine is the ways it innovates multimedia storytelling. Promethean Theatre hired Vancouver theatre and film artists to film interviews with the townsfolk in the style of true crime. The audience watching the play will see these interviews played alongside the onstage action. As a result, the production will feature an eclectic mix of mediums and genres, including comedy, mystery, and mockumentary. Many of the creative team had to learn new trades quickly. For example, director Larisse Campbell had to step out of her theatrical comfort zone to master the art of creating a film shot list. Sound designer Ty Dumoulin noted how inspiring it was to hold a boom when filming the interviews, a process that he already had some experience in. Props designer Ana Pflug was shocked by how scrappy she had to become because, working primarily in film, she was used to the movie industry’s inflated budget lines.

David Volpov began writing the play during the pandemic. He said, “I felt troubled by how quickly conspiracy theories spread. I saw this cycle repeat after each major world event. Our abilities to engage in meaningful discourse eroded while our reliance on bias-confirming news increased. With so much misinformation online nowadays, how is anyone supposed to parse through what’s fact and what’s fiction? That’s the question I try to explore in Tragedy, Slander, & Wine.” During the pandemic, Volpov found a unique parallel: Tiger King. He said “Tiger King really opened my eyes to how I consume media. I had no actual evidence to suggest Carole Baskin was complicit in her husband’s death, but that’s what everyone was talking about on social media. The filmmakers convinced people it was true. I realized that true crime connects with what I wanted to explore in Tragedy, Slander, & Wine. So, the play is a mystery where media intervention and technology muddies the facts instead of solving the case.”