BREMEN
TOWN
After forty-five years of hard work and dedication, Frau Esel, the longest serving housekeeper of Völksenhaus, has been fired and sent out to pasture. In a rage, she sets out on a winding journey to Bremen to live with her estranged son, meeting a host of trying characters along the way (and doing her best to avoid the stupid Kite Festival).
Loosely based on a collection of folk tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, Bremen Town is greatly inspired and influenced by writer and director Prest’s time working in a seniors home in his hometown of Pictou, Nova Scotia, and witnessing his grandmothers’ end-of-life journeys. Bremen Town picks away at our assumptions and fears about aging, survival, and the process of letting go.
Bremen Town was commissioned and developed by Soulpepper. The project has been encouraged in many ways through the support and kindness of Donald and Gretchen Ross, Paula Wing, Vanessa Morgan, Kelly McEvenue, Damien Atkins, Weyni Mengesha, Alan Dilworth, Laura McLeod, Chris Scholey, Tania Senewiratne, Lisa Li, Ken MacKenzie, Guillermo Verdecchia, Kimberly Colburn, Laura Baxter, Bojan Elez, Annie Clarke, and Mary Rella.