Providence by the Eye of the Dawn Collective

Commencing The Kick & Push Festival’s 11th season is the world premiere of Providence, the latest work written and directed by Craig Walker and performed by local artists from the Eye of the Dawn Collective.

Providence by the Eye of the Dawn Collective, is a play set in Summer 1875, the day before the railway opens. The cast of five includes three men, a girl, and the mother of two of the men. Like most of the workers who built the K&P, the men are poor immigrants from Ireland and Scotland. And like many immigrants to Canada, they have an equivocal relationship with their past lives. Trouble from “the old country” is making their new home dangerous.

At the Binnington Court entrance to the K&P Trail is an information sign explaining that the trail is named after the Kingston and Pembroke Railway (known locally as the Kick and Push). On the back is a photograph of a small work crew, including three men, and surprisingly, seated before them, a young girl. Musing on who these people were, and why the photograph was taken—was the beginning of the play Providence.
While almost all of the K&P railway itself is long gone, within Kingston there is one short stretch of the original tracks at Hickson and Hagerman Avenues. It is here that Providence is staged on the 150th anniversary of K&P’s opening.

This show was funded in part by the City of Kingston Arts Fund.