Mary Fay Coady
Richie Wilcox’s play Coal Bowl Queen has started previews and opens tomorrow August 15th, 2025 at Ship’s Company Theatre where it will run until August 24th. The play is being presented in collaboration with HEIST and Eastern Front Theatre. It will then run at Eastern Front Theatre’s Alderney Landing Theatre in Dartmouth from September 11th to 21st.
Wilcox, who also directs the play and is the founding Artistic Director of HEIST, originally hails from New Waterford, and now makes his home in Parrsboro.
I chatted with Mary Fay Coady who plays Queenie, Koumbie, who plays Roz, and Benan Ali who plays Cameron, about how this play is taking audiences in Parrsboro to 1987 New Waterford this summer.
Roz is on a quest to find her birth mother, and this brings them to contemporary New Waterford, Nova Scotia, the place that they know as their origin story. What they don’t know is that their history is tied to Queenie and Cameron, and New Waterford’s legendary annual basketball tournament: the Coal Bowl Classic.
Ali tells me that for him taking part in this production has been a little bit of art mirroring life. “Cameron is from Red Deer, Alberta,” he says, “and I’m from Edmonton, Alberta. Cameron comes over to New Waterford and Nova Scotia for the first time, and I’m coming to Nova Scotia for the first time [to be in this production]. Cameron and Mary Fay’s character, Queenie, both are occupying most of their time in 1987 and Cameron specifically comes over to play in a basketball tournament for the Red Deer Raiders at Lindsay Thurber High School… I have friends who go to Lindsay Thurber, which is very much like I’m taking pictures of my jersey and sending it to people back home, which is really fun.”
Conversely, Mary Fay Coady plays Queenie, who is local to New Waterford. She tells me that she and Wilcox have decided that she is an honorary Cape Bretoner because her dad is from Margaree Forks, one of thirteen in an Irish Catholic family, and her mom was from Sydney, and she came from a family of seven. “I spend most of my summers in Cape Breton, I did a lot of Cape Bretoning when I was a kid,” says Coady, “I do feel deeply connected to the story because I’ve spent so much of my time there, and because my parents, they didn’t experience Coal Bowl per se, but the people that we’re expressing in this play, like, I know all of them. They’re my aunts. They’re my uncles. They’re my cousins. My whole life. So, even the way that Richie wrote it, it’s his voice, but it’s so specific of a people, of a community- down to where the punctuation is and where the ellipses stand, and the way in which the lilt of the music, the tempos of the script, are really true to that Cape Breton way. I guess the etymology of that is the Gaelic.”
In fact, Wilcox spoke to over fifty people who have personal experience with the Coal Bowl, and he uses pieces of verbatim text woven throughout his fictionalized central story. This has helped him capture the specific cadence of speech that Coady is alluding to.
Koumbie’s character, Roz, is a contemporary Queer character coming from Ontario. “They come to New Waterford because they find out that’s where they were born, and she discovers that her mom was really deeply involved in this basketball tournament, and so in order to figure out who her mom was, she needs to learn about this basketball tournament, and Roz has no idea or interest, or any inkling about what Coal Bowl is, or what in means to the town of New Waterford. And so in discovering that, she is able to sort of discover her parents, her lineage, her home, and she meets a lot of fun characters along the way.” “I think what the audience is going to see is a community, a Cape Breton community, that kind of shines the light on all the amazing things that come with kind of a small town rural community, and also some of the things that hold them back, and I think each of these characters has a little bit of that light and dark in them,” says Coady. “Queenie’s trajectory is that she embodies the spirit and the kind of energy of all of the best things Cape Bretoners have to offer, whilst also contending with some of the traditions and values that are actually maybe holding the community back from growing in the way that the world is growing now.”
“Roz comes in as an outsider who has no concept of the town, the people, and specifically the Coal Bowl, and so I think it’s fun how Richie has sort of structured the show where Roz kind of holds the audience’s hands as they learn about Coal Bowl, and the magic of Coal Bowl, and it’s not just the basketball, it’s also the food, and it’s also the dances, and there are these social components, and all of the magic that New Waterford comes alive, and the hospitality, there’s so many pieces that people get to learn about because Coal Bowl truly isn’t just a basketball tournament,” says Koumbie. Roz also learns that part of the Coal Bowl tradition is crowning a Coal Bowl pageant Queen. “Roz doesn’t really vibe with the whole pageant situation,” says Koumbie, “… so there’s a really interesting sort of nuanced conversation around what place a pageant has in this day and age.” In 2016 Bruce MacDonald, then principal of Breton Education Centre told the Cape Breton Post, that every year the Coal Bowl pageant had been held during the tournament with a Princess representing each team. However, in 2016 things changed and for the last nine years the girls have been ambassadors instead of princesses, which has taken the pageant component out of the event. Koumbie notes that folks in New Waterford still have strong opinions on both sides about this decision, and that both sides are represented in the play.
“Richie is the perfect person to tell this story,” says Koumbie, “because they’re able to do it in such a loving and also sort of realistic way, where he’s not shying away from some of the tougher gnarly bits, but also he knows and loves these people so dearly, and it’s so clear that he does, and I think he’s able to hold both of those truths simultaneously, which is not easy to do.”
Koumbie also cites what a wealth of knowledge Wilcox is in the rehearsal hall. “There’s so much that isn’t even in the play, or it’s felt in the play, but not directly said, so we would get on tangents because his is now an expert in Coal Bowl because he’s been working on this show for so long, and experienced it, and lived through it, and his parents are still part of it… if you have any kind of question about like how are the hot dogs made? He’s like, ‘this is exactly how.’”
Ali says that he is really enjoying getting to work at Ship’s Company Theatre for the first time saying, “I feel a bit like I’m stepping into this painting where I get to come to this beautiful place and meet all these lovely and kind, caring people, and I’ve never experienced summer theatre contracts like this before either, so it’s been a magical experience where I feel like I really get to step into a different galaxy and take it all in for a bit. It’s been really lovely and I’m having such a wonderful time.”
“It’s not very often your daily has a rip n’ dip,” says Koumbie. “I’m professionally told about when the tide is coming in and that’s a unique experience,” Ali says. Coady agrees, saying that you only have to go five minutes in any direction and you’re at the ocean.
Koumbie praises the high levels of communication and teamwork between the three different partnering companies: Ship’s Company, HEIST, and Eastern Front, in the development of this work. “It really feels like a labour of love from so many sides. I feel it is important just to mention that with Mary Vingoe’s passing, it has felt especially special to be working on this show with all of these companies who were all in various ways either created by or touched by Mary Vingoe, so it’s been kind of cool to be in a show with that legacy behind it from all those different companies.” Koumbie also points out the accessibility measures that are in place in all three of these companies, saying that they are three companies that have been “on the cutting edge of accessibility in our region,” Koumbie points out that it would have been impossible to take a contract in Parrsboro this summer had there not been subsidized childcare and being in a situation where she can see her child for lunchtime visits and during the rehearsal process. “There’s a lot of grace and space given for people to be able to bring their best selves to the room,” Koumbie says.
As for the audience, Koumbie says, come to Ship’s Company Theatre to see Coal Bowl Queen, a brand new Nova Scotian play featuring nine actors, a dance number, hot dogs for sale during Intermission, and “Mary Fay in all her 80s hair glory.”
Coal Bowl Queen runs Wednesday to Saturdays at 7:30pm with 2:00pm matinees on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at Ship’s Company Theatre (18 Lower Main Street, Parrsboro). Tickets range in price from $16.02 – $42.72 and are available at this website, by calling 1-800-565-SHOW (7469) or in person at the Box Office at 18 Lower Main Street.
Accessibility: There are 6 Wheelchair Accessible seats available for each performance. Assisted-listening devices are available upon request.
Coal Bowl Queen then opens September 11th at Alderney Landing Theatre (2 Ochterloney Street, Dartmouth) and runs until September 21st. Shows run at 7:30pm Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and at 1:00pm on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets range in price from $25.52 to $45.00 and are available from this website.
Accessibility: The Theatre is on the second level of Alderney Landing, accessible by passenger elevator and stairs. Parking is available onsite, with curbside dropoff and automatic doors at the main entrance to the building. Alderney Landing is connected to Alderney Gate by pedway, accessible by elevator, escalator and stairs. ASSISTIVE LISTENING DEVICES: Phonak Roger FM/DM System available at Alderney Landing Theatre. Automatically connect via Wall Pilots or borrow a Telecoil device to sync with hearing aids and cochlear implants. Devices with headphones are also available. Please see the Box Office for assistance onsite. All performances have pay-what-you-can-afford pricing. If cost is still a barrier, please email info@EasternFrontTheatre.com. Volunteers see shows free of charge! Sign up here. There are two all gender bathrooms in the rotunda lobby, one with toilet stalls only, and one with toilet stalls and urinals. Both bathrooms are equipped with various hygiene products. For more information about Accessibility, please visit this website and scroll down.
