Rogers saga goes from the page to the stage in December debut

The battle for control of the Rogers Communications Inc. empire was documented in a best-selling book. Now it is about to become a one-man play. The Globe and Mail reporter Alexandra Posadzki chronicled the inter-family squabble and the drama surrounding the Shaw Communications Inc. takeover in her tome Rogers v. Rogers. Toronto playwright Michael Healey has now adapted her book into a play. He leapt into the project excitedly. “I found it fascinating. Alexandra’s book is very vivid,” he tells The Wire Report. “There’s lots of great character description in the book so I could see pretty quickly translating some of the scenes in the book onto scenes on stage.” The playwright was curious about the intersections between the public interest, represented by Competition Bureau commissioner Matthew Boswell, and the corporate concerns, represented by Rogers chair Edward Rogers. He downplays the machinations of the family fight, saying it does not represent plot development on stage. At the time the family battle was playing out, many observers compared it to a popular TV show of the time. That’s another reason Healey was hesitant to step into the fray. “Part of my reservation about adapting the book is that Succession already exists,” he laughs. All dozen characters will be portrayed by one actor, Tom Rooney. The veteran of the Shaw Festival and the Stratford Festival will be performing this play as part of the 2025-26 season at Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre. The play is directed by Crow’s artistic director Chris Abraham. Healey, who started out as an actor, had a good reason for keeping the cast down to one performer. “I think it’s kind of unfair to ask an actor to play a character who doesn’t substantially change from the beginning of the play to the end of the play,” he states. “And that’s kind of the case here with Edward Rogers. He’s basically the same guy he was before taking control of the company.” He finds other players provide the dramatic tension necessary for a successful production. “The real challenge here, the real fun for an audience, is to watch an actor play Edward Rogers Matthew Boswell to kind of compare their two struggles,” Healey adds. The show will run for the month of December in Toronto and then move to the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in February. Healey hopes to expand the run to other cities but is hampered by Rooney’s commitments to the Stratford Festival. The playwright graduated from the theatre program at Toronto Metropolitan University in 1985. After 11 years trodding the boards, he started writing, if only to find better parts for himself, he recounts. His first one-man show, a 1996 one-act play called Kicked, that he starred in, won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play. Healey has spent most of the past three decades writing, with the occasional acting gig thrown in for good measure. His last play for Crow’s Theatre was 2023’s The Master Plan, adapted from Globe reporter Josh O’Kane’s book Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy on the Sidewalk Labs debacle in Toronto. Healey has adapted plays by George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov and Ferenc Molnár as well as creating original works. Healey and Rooney will workshop the play for several months before previews begin in late November. Next the playwright will have the time to fine-tune any shortcomings he finds in the script before Rogers v. Rogers has its premiere on Dec. 2. ppark@thewirereport.ca

Rogers saga goes from the page to the stage in December debut

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By Paul Park
| April 22, 2025

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Rogers saga goes from the page to the stage in December debut

People | By Paul Park | April 22, 2025

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