(photo by Will Pemulis)
When Flukes Work
Scots-Canadians, a bevy of secrets, and a little known JB Priestley work
by Sarah White
Sarah White is a Toronto based actor and producer. Her career has spanned the worlds of film, television, voice and theatre. Her roles have included Willa Thompson in both “Booky’s Crush” and “Booky and The Secret Santa” a homicidal cult member in the CBC show “The Border” and the female lead in the short film Clive Houston We Have a Problem which won best international film at the Nevada Film Festival. She has also lent her voice to both The Fifth Estate and NBC’s Dateline. Most recently Ms White appeared as Polly Perks in the 2013 Toronto Fringe show Monstrous Regiment. The Glass Cage is her first producing venture.
I came upon The Glass Cage as a fluke, a bit of chance. I had been planning to produce and act in another J.B. Priestley play, perhaps his most well known, An Inspector Calls, but unfortunately after applying for the rights and being turned down . . . then waiting six months, applying again and still being turned down, I gave up and began looking for other options. I spent hours at the Toronto Reference Library and on the internet, trying to find a play that spoke to me, a play I would want to devote several months of my life to. One day, after yet another Google search, I stumbled across a J.B. Priestley play that I had never heard of before. As I read more about the play my excitement grew as I discovered that The Glass Cage was set in 1906 Toronto. It was J.B. Priestley’s last original play, and I could find no mention of it being performed in Toronto since its inaugural production in 1957. How had nobody in Canada re-mounted it? I contacted Samuel French, but they didn’t own the rights. I contacted Dramatists Play Services but they too couldn’t help me. I finally got in touch with J.B. Priestley’s estate and they were able to grant me the rights.
