"That Elasticity of Mind": Mrs. Smith and Nurse Rooke in Persuasion | Katherine Koller {Featuring a scene from a new adaptation of Persuasion by Katherine Koller, directed by Caroline Howarth and read by Erika Holba, Lori Mohacsy and Lauren Tanke, with videography by Kalli Elder}
Playwright Katherine Koller talks about the process of adapting Persuasion for the stage and why she chose to include Mrs. Smith and Nurse Rooke in her play. In a close reading of the text, Anne’s friend and friend-of-a-friend test Anne’s loyalty, not only in love, but in friendship, and illuminate Anne’s rosy glasses, her “dear self," and inherent awareness of rank. In the reader’s theatre clip presented, Anne gets a reality check that confirms her constancy to Frederick Wentworth, provides a chosen sisterhood, and prepares her for a life-changing debate with an audience of one.
Katherine Koller’s first plays, Cowboy Boots and a Corsage and Magpie, aired on CBC radio. Stage plays include the Alberta LandWorks Trilogy: Coal Valley: The Making of a Miner (Royal Tyrrell Museum), The Seed Savers (Workshop West/Station Arts Theatre), and Alberta Playwriting Competition winner, Last Chance Leduc (Theatre Rising/Backstage Theatre). Riverkeeper was a finalist in the Alberta Playwriting Competition. Recent audio plays are Hope Soup (Edmonton Fringe) and The Percussionist, with music by George Koller (Script Salon). Katherine’s books include Voices of the Land: The Seed Savers and Other Plays; a novel, Art Lessons, finalist for the Edmonton Book Prize and the Alberta Readers’ Choice Award; and Winning Chance: Stories, which won a High Plains Book Award and the Exporting Alberta Award. A second collection of short stories, Earthen, is upcoming in May 2026. Katherine Koller is a former Associate Lecturer at the University of Alberta, founding producer of Edmonton Script Salon, a monthly new play reading series now in its twelfth year, and a recent member of the Citadel Playwrights Lab writing an adaptation of Persuasion (Citadel Collider Festival), which will be performed in November 2026 (Concordia University of Edmonton). Follow her @KatKoll on X, Katherine Koller on FB, or KathScrab on Instagram.