S-27 at the Toronto Fringe Festival

S-27 is a searing drama drawn from testimony of events in the Khmer Rouge’s S-21 prison, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia. Photographs of former prisoners now covering the museum’s walls inspired the characters and story of this historic fiction. While the ongoing trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders try to establish responsibility for the events of the 1970s, this play explores personal choice within a society.

S-27, by British playwright Sarah Grochala, won Amnesty International’s Protect The Human Playwriting Award in 2007. It has had critically acclaimed productions in the UK and Australia. Director Yolanda Ferrato saw the original production at the Finborough Theatre in London while working in the UK, and was inspired to produce it with her company, Intersection Theatre, for a Toronto audience.

Portraying steely photographer May is Melanie Hrymak, last seen on the fringe as Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the 2010 Toronto Fringe show Trudeautopia. The company also includes Jesse Bond and Meaghen Quinn who recently starred in the critically acclaimed Frances and Marybeth at the Factory Theatre.

Intersection Theatre will produce the Canadian premier of Sarah Grochala’s award winning play which Lyn Gardner of the Guardian called a “blistering drama”. S-27 opens on 4 July at The Annex Theatre and runs till 14 July.