Ruby in the Dust
It's 1931. Married couple Abner and Jo Ballantyne are the lucky few to own a farm outside Bienfait, but the dust has been brutal, and their food is dwindling. Abner reluctantly takes a cooking job at the local mine as Jo's radical laypreacher brother Walter arrives to encourage unionizing at the mine.
All this time, Polish-Canadian miner Eddie Zaboroski has been squatting in the Ballantyne barn with his seven-year old daughter Ruby; the company homes are dilapidated and there's been a spell of tuberculosis in the shared sleeping areas. At the urging of Walter's charitable nature, the Ballantynes welcome them in.
A bond forms between Ruby and what appears to be a stable household, while Eddie is sacrificing his body to the coal mines for an abusive amount of hours per day. Tensions are rising in the mine with Walter planning a giant protest in nearby Estevan, and although it's intended to be peaceful, Eddie is getting angry and tired of being pushed around - especially by cops.
Production/reading/workshop history:
St. Marys, August 2026
some history
It is a deep, deep regret that media was saved from these many workshops that happened in the past. Lost photos, dead websites, a cloud too far away. We will do our best to collect information from this time - and if we are missing something, reach out to us.
The idea came when Robin was mapping out a tour with his old band, and was wondering whether to cross through the states in Manitoba or Saskatchewan. The map showed Estevan. Oh, yeah, that was where his dad was born. Getting side tracked as usual, he went into a research rabbit hole where one particular story grabbed his attention: a gravestone belonging to Slavic coal miners that read "murdered by the RCMP". Robin decided to learn more about Black Tuesday - the 1931 Estevan Riot.
There are many resources available on the internet that can give you a history lesson better than we ever could, and they deserve the clicks and credit for it. Start with the University of Saskatchewan article here and also the Canadian Encyclopedia.
The idea of Robin's home province being reduced to a dusty wasteland with children desperate for food was a slap in the face in terms of privilege and perspective. Also, being a student in Czech studies, he learned more about the prejudice that Slavic people suffered, even if they were 'ethnic' in surname only.
And of course, the aforementioned gravestones that bluntly stated the victims' cause of death. We flash forward to continued police brutality to POC, indigenous, transgender, anyone who doesn't fit the so-called mould. It was a problem when Robin first saw it, and it's still a problem as if the time of this writing (and pessimistically, this very sentence will never age.)
The "pre-dormant" Era 2013-2015
So after writing a few crappy pieces of writing, Robin decided to tackle his first 'real' play. Sure, he did a show called the Sabbatical with an incredible and talented crew in an indie setting, but that was a collection of thoughts, ideas, and traumas that trickled into his other pieces. This one was gonna be the first RTW play officially. Maybe it's weird for artists to distance themselves from earlier works, but Radiohead did it, why can't he?
He started with an early version of the play called Drowning on Dry Land. Still centred around the Estevan Riot, he had three characters in his mind from day one: Abner Ballantyne, a stoic ox of a prairie boy, written for his longtime friend Eli Ham; Jo Ballantyne, of Slavic background but hides behind her husband's English ancestry; and Eddie Zaboroski, a clown/fool type donning the coal miner's suit and dust. The Ballantynes form a bond with Eddie's young daughter, then named Banana, as their barn fills with migrant workers. The ending was a total bummer - Eddie took Banana to the protest and ends up getting her killed, and then Abner and Jo, previously sterile, find out they're pregnant. Boo. This draft was read at the Persephone Theatre backstage, dramaturged by Ham and a stellar cast that we wish we recorded. This was in 2013.
Robin started another draft after some thoughtful feedback. Booking his usual haunt, the Victory Cafe in Mirvish Village, he recruited Ham, Tim Walker (Fireproof) as Eddie, as well as Krystal Meadows as Eddie's daughter, as well as Aaron Stern playing George, Abner's police officer brother and another actor as Walter - Jo's brother. It was presented under the title And Then Came the Dust. We cannot remember who played Jo or Walter - please reach out if you know!
After listening to Neil Young's "Cowgirl in the Sand", he decided to change Banana's name to Ruby. Hello, Ruby in the Dust. It made perfect sense. So he cobbled together another draft and got his play read at Springworks in Stratford, garnering a decent crowd. David Mackett (Fireproof) played Eddie, Caitlin Driscoll (Fireproof) played Ruby, Tim MacLean played Abner, and Andrea Irwin played Jo. Robin still wasn't totally happy with the script, as incredible as his cast was as well as the experience Springworks provided him.
The problem with wrestling with a play constantly, rearranging and listening to every person's feedback - solicited or not - can result in forgetting what the damned piece looked like. Robin put together a new draft of Ruby in the Dust, this time adding confounding elements like having Abner live a secret life as a Polish person, and it got away from the heart of the story - a father sacrificing everything and bringing sunshine to his child in a cruel world. In 2015, he gave it one more go with Stratford's Alternative Theatre Works, and performed at the Masonic Temple with Brad Rudy, Peggy Coffey (Home for Boys), and Robert King reading. Again, the cast was incredible and everyone was loving. But Robin was ready to step back and re-evaluate.
After his decade long slumber, he was ready to create again. One of the projects on the burner - get back to Ruby in the Dust.