USask alumni bring Todd Devonshire’s new historical drama to life, sparking conversation about reproductive rights, silence and the lessons history refuses to let us ignore.

In the wake of renewed global debates around reproductive rights, Saskatchewan playwright and producer Todd Devonshire is inviting audiences to step aboard The Boat — a historical drama that feels urgently contemporary.

Set in the 1960s off the coast of Nova Scotia, The Boat follows two doctors, Carmen and Jane, who establish a floating clinic in international waters under a foreign flag where abortion is not a crime. Women travel to the vessel seeking a safe space to choose at a time when abortion in Canada remained heavily restricted. But Devonshire hints that not everyone who boards the boat is telling the truth.

The premise may be historical, but the spark behind the script was unmistakably modern. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Devonshire immediately began writing. The decision reverberated across North America, reigniting conversations about bodily autonomy and access to care — conversations that Devonshire believes Canadians cannot afford to treat as settled history.

“Canada and the sixties were a time of change in so many ways,” Devonshire says. “The pill, contraceptives and the fight for choice were at the heart of that change.” Placing the story in the 1960s allowed him to explore a moment when social movements, medical practice and women’s rights were colliding in powerful and often painful ways.

Though the play is fiction, its foundation is meticulously researched. Devonshire, a history teacher, approached the project as both an artist and a scholar. “Teachers of history are also students of history,” he says. His research included a dissertation chronicling abortion in Canada from 1950 to 1990, drawing heavily on firsthand accounts from nurses on the front lines. The statistics were shocking, uncovering many heartbreaking stories. Many nurses defied restrictive laws to provide care, often at personal and professional risk.

According to the author of the dissertation, without those acts of defiance, abortion would not have been decriminalized in Canada in 1988. Devonshire remembers that moment clearly. He also remembers the fierce, polarized reactions that followed — reactions that, in some ways, have never truly dissipated.

That lingering polarization shapes The Boat. Devonshi positions and into an area of grey where there can be compassion, empathy and conversation.” Abortion, he emphasizes, is complex. It resists easy slogans and tidy moral categories. “Just when you think you know it all, a new scenario presents itself.”

Devonshire explained that the hardest part of writing was deciding which stories to include, given how many were “tragic, heartbreaking and deeply revealing.” He ultimately cut one storyline because it felt overwhelming, though there were many others to draw from (The play includes a content warning, a reminder that this history is not abstract. It is visceral and deeply personal). Each character’s reason for being on the boat had to feel sincere, and he believes that sincerity carries through, particularly in the performances.

Honesty, he says, was the guiding principle. “The audience expects some respect for the truth.” When viewers trust what they are seeing, he believes, they can confront the central question the play poses: “What would you do if this were you?”

That question resonates powerfully in Saskatchewan. Although abortion is legal and decriminalized in Canada, access remains uneven, particularly in rural communities. Devonshire points out that one in four pregnancies in Canada ends in miscarriage, cases that require immediate medical care and often involve the same procedures used in abortion services. He goes on to mention how the infrastructure surrounding reproductive healthcare is fragile; funding shifts in cities like Saskatoon or Regina could significantly alter access.

For younger audiences, many of whom were born long after 1988, The Boat is both a history lesson and a warning. Rights achieved through struggle can be eroded through complacency. Devonshire recalls noticing something unsettling in a dissertation published after 2020: some nurses interviewed decades later chose to use only initials instead of full names. The stigma, it seemed, had not fully disappeared. The silence lingered.

Breaking that silence is one of the production’s core goals. The creative team will host After Show Talk Backs, offering audiences the opportunity to engage in conversation with Devonshire and director Liz Whitbread. The University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union President Emma Wintermute will moderate one of these discussions on Feb. 28.

The talkbacks are designed not as debates to be won, but as conversations to be had. Devonshire hopes they create space for nuance, a rarity in a discourse often dominated by absolutes.

The production itself is deeply rooted in Saskatchewan. The cast and crew are entirely Saskatchewan-based, with more than half being University of Saskatchewan graduates. For Devonshire, this was less a requirement than an opportunity. “When the talent is here, why not use it?” he says. “The talent in this province is second to none.”

Elizabeth Nepjuk, who plays Dr. Carmen Grant, was drawn to the project both artistically and personally. Having worked on Devonshire’s previous history-based play, Monday Night, Nepjuk trusted his ability to handle sensitive subject matter with care. They also cite their strong beliefs in bodily autonomy, child welfare and universal healthcare as motivations for joining the production.

For Nepjuk, the role is personal. “My first-hand experience of abortion and the desire to make [abortion] a discussion that society has openly and with more knowledge.” 

“The content is difficult,” she acknowledges, “but the task is rewarding.” The rehearsal room, they say, has been warm and supportive, filled with a group of artists committed to telling this story with integrity.

Independent theatre comes with challenges: limited resources, logistical hurdles and the constant need for community support. But it also carries a particular kind of passion. The artists involved in The Boat believe in the importance of the stories they are telling and in the audience’s capacity  to engage with them thoughtfully.

Ultimately, Devonshire hopes readers approach the production with curiosity and sincerity. He understands that abortion is controversial and emotionally charged. He is not asking audiences to leave those emotions at the door. Instead, he invites them to bring those feelings into the theatre and sit with them.

“Maybe someone will walk away from the show and say, ‘Well, I never thought of that,’” he says.

In a time when history is often flattened into headlines and hashtags, The Boat insists on complexity. It reminds us that the rights and freedoms many Canadians take for granted were secured through struggle, courage and quiet acts of resistance. It suggests that ignoring history leaves us vulnerable to repeating it.

For USask students, many of whom are navigating their own questions about identity, autonomy and civic responsibility, The Boat offers more than a night at the theatre. It’s a reminder that history is not behind us; it’s watching what we do next.The Boat runs at The Refinery in Saskatoon from February 26 to March 8, 2026.