The Motyer-Fancy Theatre 2025-26 season opens with a witty, powerful, female-led play
As Mt. A students transition back into classes after fall reading week, the Motyer-Fancy Theatre (MFT) is putting on their first show of the 2025-26 season, Numbers written by Kieron Barry. A play described to be about “power and what we do when we have it,” says instructor in applied theatre and Play Director Valmai Goggin at Mt. A. Theatre-goers will be drawn into the tense, high-pressure world of a British girls’ boarding school, where competition and control shape every interaction.
A negatively charged environment of peers and friends looking to gain more power over one another, the setting of Numbers is applicable to scenarios of different genres and scales. “This show is about a group of girls at a very posh British boarding school, scrabbling for the top position of head girl,” said Goggin, speaking to the plot of the script. Goggin elaborates, drawing a parallel between the struggle for power happening in the play and “the struggles for power that happen at the very top of our world.” By comparing the plot of Numbers and the real world, Goggin says “politically and culturally, [the two] are not that different.”
Amy Evans, actor for Numbers and second-year psychology and drama studies student at Mt.A, mentioned the role of relationships in the play. Evans said “a big part of [the show] is relationships [within] this group of girls and how [they] change or don’t change over the course of the play.” For Evans, who experiences the play both on stage and behind the scenes , she enjoys playing “characters who have those epiphanies about [their relationships] and each other.”
Sukie Dalgleish, Numbers actor and fourth-year biology and chemistry student at Mt. A, highlights that “nobody is perfect. We all have so many aspects that define us, nobody is all good or all bad.”
In the process of choosing a script to open the current MFT season, Goggin said, she looked at “female driven” plays, highlighting a desire for “really strong roles for our female and female identifying students.” In addition, she had a personal challenge for picking a play she wanted to direct, “I did not want a play where the plot required a female character to die,” said Goggin.
The process of interpreting the script, setting the show on stage and rehearsing Numbers also revealed challenges for the actors. Evans describes dealing with the feelings and emotions of a new character as an actor to be “fun” and “scary.” Isabel, the character portrayed by Evans, is “very different from any character [she has] played before.” Evans describes Isabel as “comedy meets intelligence meets intimidation.”
Dalgleish shares Evans’ experience of being challenged, also playing a character falling outside of her area of expertise. Dalgleish described her character Jennifer as “a mean character [she] genuinely could relate to and [feel] bad for.”
All parties brought up the challenge of working with various British accents and slang. Goggin expressed pride and gratitude for “a phenomenal job” actors have done “at tackling these British accents.” She highlighted how “essential” it is to pay close attention to the accents, word choice, and pronunciation to effectively deliver layers of meaning put in the text by the playwright.
The last challenge discussed by Goggin and Dalgleish is conveying the comedy of the show. Dalgleish identified putting together an unfamiliar accent with comedy as her point of challenge. “It’s one thing to have a comedic tone and be funny in your own voice and then it’s a different thing to do that in an accent,” she said. Goggin agrees, highlighting “comedy brings its own challenges of rhythm and pace.” She mentioned “trying to anticipate where the laugh lines are” and “where the breaks need to be.” Goggin emphasized that these challenges are not daunting but rather “really fun to sort out with the team in rehearsal.”
If you would like to buy tickets or learn more about Numbers, other shows that are coming up at the MFT or how to get involved with the theatre, visit Mt.A Drama website at https://mta.ca/current-students/drama-studies-program/motyer-fancy-theatre.