Winner of the Merritt Award for Outstanding New Nova Scotia Play
Ten days after an air-sea disaster, an island fisherman struggles to recover from the aftermath of his participation in the rescue-turned-recovery operation of a downed jetliner. Aaron’s mental fragility is compounded by his wife’s recent decision to take their twelve-year-old special needs son to live off-island so that he will get better schooling. Aaron, determined to regain his equilibrium, boards his small boat and heads out to where he feels most at peace, on the ocean. When he returns to shore hours later with a young mute woman, the question foremost in everyone’s mind is, “Who is she?” But more concerning to Aaron’s mother is whether Aaron might really believe he has found a lone survivor. Downed Hearts is a play that delves into the possibility that healing sometimes comes to us in mysterious ways.
About the Author
Catherine Banks is a two-time Governor General’s Literary Award winner for Bone Cage and It Is Solved By Walking. Her plays have garnered many awards including the Merritt Award for Best Play for Ship’s Company and Eastern Front Theatre’s 2023 production of Downed Hearts. Catherine’s plays have been performed in Canada, USA and Scotland; It Is Solved by Walking was translated into Catalan and toured Catalonia in 2012. Her body of work includes Miss N’ Me; Three Storey, Ocean View and Bitter Rose; In This Light; Charmaine’s Magic; The Hope Project, and her recent adaptation of Ernest Buckler’s classic novel The Mountain and the Valley, which premiered in 2024. Catherine is a graduate of Acadia University, has taught playwriting at The Fountain School of the Performing Arts and Dalhousie University, and she holds the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (Honorary) from Mount St. Vincent University.
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