[2] The play was created collectively in response to the crimes of German woman Marianne Bachmeier, who walked into a courtroom and shot the man who killed her daughter.
[3] The feminist play explores themes of violence, revenge, domesticity, and questions the roles of western women at the end of the 20th century.
[4] The play was developed by The Anna Collective which at various points contained Aida Jordão, Suzanne Odette Khuri, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Patricia Nichols, Baņuta Rubess, Tori Smith, Barb Taylor, and Maureen White.
[5] Officially, the play is credited to Khuri, Macdonald, Rubess, and White in its 1993 publication in an anthology of the Canadian Theatre Review.
This medium operates from a foundation of performers' own ideas and experiences, and the final production is largely devised within the rehearsal process itself.
All four actors then embody Marianne at different points of her life, having conversations with various other absent characters such as Anna (her daughter who was killed), her ex-partner, and an interviewer visiting her in prison.
They perform regimented choreography and talk amongst themselves; engaging in dialogue which communicates nuanced perspectives on the complications of living with and leaving abusive partners.
These perspectives are written in small snippets, to be spoken rapidly by the cast in order to create an overwhelming crescendo for the audience.
[1] In 1984, Khuri, MacDonald, Nichols, Rubess, Smith, Taylor, and White toured Southern Ontario with a production of This is For You, Anna.
[12] Four Westmount Secondary School students, Hannah Byrnes-Wolfson, Nelie Diverlus, Bridget Mountford, and Jesse Adams, performed This is For You, Anna in 2017.
[14] Theatre Antigonish's production was staged at St. Francis Xavier University partially in response to two students there being charged with sexual violence in 2017.
The 1993 edition contained significant changes including the removal of production stills and of Smith and Taylor's names from the official Anna Collective.