Albert

A woman attempts to return her childhood stuffed bunny to the department store where it came from. Her life in tatters, she looks for someone to take back all of her disappointment and grant her a clean slate. What she finds at the return counter, however, challenges her expectation of perfect happiness.

Creative team

Writer/co-director/co-producer: Kerry McPherson
Co-director: Chris Abraham
Co-producer: Lisa Baylin

Filmmaker’s statement

Writer/co-director/co-producer Kerry McPherson says:

“Albert is about the dark, absurd things we will do when we are up against the wall.

One Christmas, I was incredibly broke. I applied as holiday staff at a huge department store and found myself high above the city in a sea of cash registers reading a handout on how to say hello to someone. It was the worst.

As they started to teach us about their very broad return policy, I picked up my pen and started to write a scene about the woman who would be their biggest nightmare.”

About Chris Abraham

Chris Abraham has been the artistic director of Crow’s Theatre since 2007. At Crow’s, he has directed numerous productions including Eternal Hydra, I, Claudia, Boxhead, The Country and Instructions to Any Future Socialist Government Wishing to Abolish Christmas.

Chris is also a multi-award winning theatre and film director, dramaturg and teacher who has worked with Canada’s foremost artists and theatres including the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Canadian Stage Company, Tarragon Theatre, Segal Centre, Centaur Theatre, Globe Theatre and Theatre Junction among many others.

In 2000, he co-founded and was the co-artistic director of Bill Glassco’s Montreal Young Company.

In 2003, Chris directed the film adaptation of Kristen Thomson’s award winning hit I, Claudia for which he won a Gemini award. The film was also named as one of 2004′s top 10 Canadian films by the Toronto International Film Festival.

A graduate of the National Theatre School’s directing program, Chris later served as co-director of the school’s renowned directing program (2006-2010).

Chris was the recipient of the John Hirsch and Ken MacDougall awards and the Elinore and Lou Siminovitch Protege Award for directors.

Most recently, Chris directed the highly lauded Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, The Little Years and returned in 2012 to direct Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker.

Kerry McPherson

Since completing her BFA in acting at Concordia University, Kerry has continued to train in a variety of acting techniques with master teachers Larry Moss, Ivana Chubbuck, John Riven and Greg Braun as well as Pochinko clown with Sue Morrison.

Professional highlights have included co-starring with Gene Wilder in a project he penned for A&E called The Lady In Question, with Harvey Keitel in The Path to 9/11 and Gretchen Mol in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. In 2004, she was invited to the Banff Centre for the Arts as a member of the Women In The Director’s Chair Acting Ensemble.

In theatre, she had a blistering ride originating the role of Daisy in Gord Rand’s Dora-nominated play Pond Life, at the 2005 Toronto Fringe Festival and later that year at The Factory Theatre.

In 2008, she directed Rand’s The Trial of Thumbelina at the Summerworks Theatre Festival. She completed her first screenplay 10 years ago; a feature film called Hummingbird Heart about a young woman who heads to Nashville to seek fame and fortune as a country singer. After reading that script, Motel Pictures commissioned her to adapt Kenneth J. Harvey’s short story, Break and Enter, into a short screenplay.

Her next feature film, The Year of The Moth, was a finalist in Telefilm’s 2006 Pitch This! contest at the Toronto International Film Festival and a quarter-finalist in the 2009 Scriptapalooza screenplay contest. Set in 1934, it tells the story of Rose Canning, a small town bank teller who becomes obsessed with bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde in the wake of her mother’s death.

Moon of Strong Cold began as a short and has evolved into a feature film, a misfit love story set in Niagara Falls in the dead of winter. It was selected by the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers for their LIFT Out Loud reading series in 2009. In February of 2011, she became an artist in residence at Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts on Toronto Island, where she braved snow, ferry stoppages and coyotes to work on a new play for the stage, Blue Rinse.

Albert was produced with assistance from the National Film Board of Canada. Kerry wrote, co-directed with Chris Abraham, co-produced with Lisa Baylin, and stars. It screened at Cinefest Sudbury, Filmstock, LA Shorts Fest, was nominated for a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Comedy at the Yorkton Film Fest and won a Bronze Remi for Best Original Comedy at WorldFest Houston.