Playwright Matt Murray is on a quest to get to know Hamilton — through its people, and through its pizza.
Murray’s The Time Capsule, which launches Theatre Aquarius’ 25-26 season, is all about what makes Steeltown special. Staged by artistic director Mary Francis Moore, this comedy follows a motley collection of Hamiltonians who plan to bury a time capsule commemorating their city, only to clash with each other over what it should contain. The production begins previews October 1, and features actors Richard Allen Campbell, Deborah Drakeford, Stephanie Sy, Lorna Wilson, and Richard Young.
The Time Capsule is a reimagining of another play by Murray, The Chronicles of Sarnia. Originally commissioned by the Blyth Festival, Chronicles features the same central premise, but is set in Murray’s hometown of Sarnia, Ontario. “It’s one of those places that people know, but don’t necessarily know a whole lot about,” said Murray in an interview.
When Blyth produced Chronicles in 2023, “Moore came to see the show, and she loved it,” Murray explained. They started to discuss the possibility of a Hamilton production, and how some key changes, including the title, might allow this hyper-local play to embrace a new city and audience.
Murray is no stranger to Hamilton, or to Theatre Aquarius. Maggie, a new musical which he co-wrote with Johnny Reid and Bob Foster, premiered on Aquarius’s mainstage in 2023 to critical acclaim. In transposing The Time Capsule to a Hamilton context, Murray drew on the knowledge and expertise of the theatre’s internal community.
“The play was distributed among the staff,” he said. “I asked [Moore] to let me know their feedback, because there are people in that building who have lived [in Hamilton] their entire lives and have worked at Aquarius for 40 years… I’ve really leaned on [them] to give me the stamp of approval, every step of the way.” He also stressed Moore’s dramaturgical role in helping “authenticate the piece.”
Murray complemented local perspectives with “a tremendous amount of research and reading.” At the time of the interview, rehearsals for The Time Capsule had just begun, and Murray was looking forward to being in Hamilton “for the duration of the rehearsal process, so I’m further entrenched in this community. I’m just going to keep evolving [this play] until I’m not allowed to anymore.”
Any further research will involve pizza. “It’s a running [joke] here that Hamiltonians are very passionate about their pizza,” Murray explained. He described how one reference to a pizza place in his script had “sparked an entire debate” at Theatre Aquarius about the best slice in town. “I want to try all the places, [so] I can get in on the debate,” he said.
Murray’s fascination with community runs through his body of work. Maggie paints a portrait of Lanark, a tight-knit town in Scotland. And the holiday pantomimes he’s penned — including last year’s Wizard of Oz and the upcoming Robin Hood for Canadian Stage, in association with the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres — forge community in real time through topical jokes and audience participation.
“I’d consider myself an audience-focused writer,” Murray said. He believes that “everyone who buys a ticket to see a show should see themselves in it, in some way. Focusing on community helps [me] succeed in that mission.” He hopes audiences who see The Time Capsule will think, “‘this is like a weird little slice of my life. I’m not in this church basement, at this meeting, but there’s so much of me represented [in] all these characters.’”
Theatre Aquarius’s website calls The Time Capsule a female-forward story. If Murray’s plays resound with a love for community, they also pay tribute to the women who hold those communities together.
“There are three women in [The Time Capsule], and amongst those three women is a real spectrum of generations,” said Murray. For him, “there’s something about women as caretakers, as story-keepers and as pillars of society. My first few plays were very female-centric,” as is Maggie.
“I have such a reverence for the women in my life,” Murray continued, “from my mother to my sister-in-law to my dearest friends.” He also spoke about his desire to write great roles for women, “especially as actors start to age up. [I want] to keep creating roles and jobs for individuals that I think are so talented, [and] age groups that I feel are underrepresented.”
Murray shared that he owes his career as a playwright to four very special women in his life. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that I was such a huge Golden Girls fan growing up,” he said. “That’s where I really learned the art of comedy. The Golden Girls taught me how to set up and land a joke. Nobody did it better than those four.
“Maybe I need to unpack this in therapy,” he joked. “I think I’m just trying to write The Golden Girls.”
The Time Capsule runs fron October 1 to October 18 at Theatre Aquarius. Tickets are available here.
Theatre Aquarius is an Intermission partner. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Nathaniel Hanula-James
Nathaniel Hanula-James is a multidisciplinary theatre artist who has worked across Canada as a dramaturg, playwright, performer, and administrator.
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