Advance Theatre Festival - Just Like Paris Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 7:30 PM PST

× Ruby Slippers Theatre in association with The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Playwrights Guild of Canada present The Advance Theatre Festival: Advancing the Radically Inclusive Stage. Five Staged Readings over Five Days

Just Like Paris

Playwright: Marcia Johnson

*READING OF PLAY ONLY*

Just Like Paris is a World War II play set in Lethbridge, Alberta. Gwendolyn leaves her fiancé Donovan and their baby in Jamaica for Canada where she can use her newly earned nursing degree to help in the war effort. Gwen is stationed at the largest of Canada’s twenty-seven German Prisoner of War camps in Lethbridge, Alberta. It holds over 12,000 men. Also in Lethbridge is young Japanese Canadian couple Byron and Sakura. They have been displaced from Vancouver and are settling into a small outbuilding on a beet farm. They will work on the farm as cheap labour and wait out the war when people of Japanese ancestry will no longer be seen as the enemy. Their path crosses with Gwendolyn’s when Sakura has a medical emergency. Dietmar is a German private who was captured by British forces in Africa and transported to Lethbridge. He suffers a concussion and has to spend time in the Camp 133 infirmary. When he meets Gwendolyn, he spews all the hatred that he’s been indoctrinated with in Hitler’s Germany. However, Gwendolyn’s resolve and her thoughtful caregiving wins him over. They form an unexpected bond.

Playwright’s Bio: Marcia Johnson (she/her) is an actor/writer/dramaturg based in T'Karonto. Her play Serving Elizabeth (in which she also acted) premiered at Western Canada Theatre (co-produced with Thousand Islands Playhouse) in February 2020. The TIP production was pandemic-delayed by a full year. Other productions played at the Stratford Festival, Belfry Theatre, Theatre Aquarius and Peterborough Players in New Hampshire. Another production is scheduled for November 2025 at Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg. The podcast version is available on CBC and Play Me. Other plays include Binti's Journey based on The Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis, Perfect on Paper at the Toronto Fringe and Talk is Free Theatre and Say Ginger Ale. The latter two plays also had radio drama adaptations on CBC. Marcia has performed in theatres including YES/Sudbury Theatre Centre (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time); Blyth Festival (New Canadian Curling Club,1837: The Farmers' Revolt) and Factory Theatre/GCTC (The Real McCoy). She also makes brief appearances in TV and Film (American Gods, American Gothic, Diggs town) and two shorts making the festival circuit (Comics, Memento Mori)

Location: Room 103

All tickets $15.00

SUBSCRIPTIONS
Purchase 3 different “Shadbolt Presents” shows for the same Patron and receive a special subscription price of $5.00 off per ticket. This show does not qualify for a discount but you can add it to your 3 shows for a subscription. . Available by phone only. Arts Club on Tour, Jazz @ the Bolt and shows $25 and under can be included as one of the three required for subscription however they will not receive the $5.00 discount. Not included: Arts Club on Tour and Jazz @ the Bolt

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No refunds on tickets. 2.00 fee per ticket for exchanges