The Rez Sisters

The Rez Sisters Study Guide

The Rez Sisters is a play by Canadian playwright Tomson Highway. First performed in 1986, the play is centered on seven Native women who live on a fictional reserve called Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. It is the first play in an unfinished cycle of seven plays that Highway calls The Rez Septology. Other plays included in this septology include Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.

The play features an ensemble of women all with their respective dreams of a better life. Their ticket to a better life is winning an epic game of bingo, and each of them faces different challenges along the road to an event in Toronto billed as "THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD." The play is a comedy, but it incorporates many dramatic and tragic subjects and mixes realistic scenes with more mystical, surrealistic moments and moments that take their aesthetic cues from Aboriginal spirituality.

The play received acclaim upon its premiere, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play and the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award.