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Canadian Plays Welcome to the Canadian Plays section where you will find plays published in English from across Canada and plays in translation from French Canada. Plays are listed by playwright, by last name. Please note this section is under revision, with more formatting and images to come. A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z Canadian Anthologies If you are unsure of the author's name, please to to our search engine and enter the title of the work you are interested in. Plays by Canadian playwrights are now appearing on stages around the world both in their original language and in translation. Many are award winners both in Canada and abroad. The creative imagination of the Canadian playwright knows no bounds and the publishers, equally creative, strive to produce beautiful editions for the reader. Our annotations are brief but we strive for acuracy in the description. We stock and sell plays from Dramatists Play Service, Dramatic Publishing Co. and Samuel French Ltd. If you require cast breakdowns or any other information, please feel free to call us at (416) 922.7175 (toll-free 1.800.361.3414) or email us at action@theatrebooks.com. New & Featured Canadian Plays The Penelopiad Margaret Atwood As portrayed in Homer's Odyssey, Penelope - wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy - has become a symbol of wifely duty and devotion, enduring twenty years of waiting when her husband goes to fight in the Trojan War. When Odysseus finally comes home, he kills her suitors and then, in an act that served as little more than a footnote in Homer's original story, ruthlessly hangs Penelope's twelve maids. Now, Penelope and her chorus of wronged maids tell their side of the story in a new stage version by Margaret Atwood, adapted from her own wry, witty and wise novel. Softcover, 82 pp. $16.00. Something Red & The Jones Boy Tom Walmsley As shocking and powerful today as they were when they first rocked the theatre scene in the 1970s, these two classic plays by Tom Walmsley expose the heart of a world located somewhere near the intersection of love and destruction. Softcover, 136 pp. $18.95. Dear Boss: A Fortean Chronicle of Jack the Ripper Eric Woolfe A murder mystery and a romantic horror story for three actors and thirty puppets, Dear Boss is an imagined investigation of the Ripper Murders. Charles Fort - a famous researcher of such phenomena as spontaneous combustion, raining fish and frogs, ghosts and flying saucers - picks his way through the madness and mayhem of Whitechapel in the autumn of 1888 to find answers to one of history's most notorious riddles. Softcover, 107 pp. $15.95. Two Plays Vern Thiessen This newly released anthology contains two of Thiessen's earlier plays: Apple and Blowfish. Softcover, $18.95.     Vimy Vern Thiessen France. 1917. Aided by a nurse from Nova Scotia, four wounded Canadian soldiers recover in a field hospital in the wake of the battle for Vimy Ridge. Governor General's Literary Award winner Vern Thiessen explores how a nation's defining moment is reflected in the lives of everyday people, their hopes and their dreams. Softcover, 81 pp. $17.95. Stretching Hide Dale Lakevold et al The Willows, Saskatchewan: Frank, a young Metis lawyer, introduces his fiance to the idyllic life of his community one July long weekend. That weekend his law practice and his personal life are threatened when the provincial game wardens accuse him of poaching a deer. Softcover, 104 pp. $14.95. 10 Days on Earth Ronnie Burkett Darrel is a middle-aged intellectually challenged man who lives with his mother. When she dies in her sleep, Darrel does not realize she is gone, and so, for over a week, he lives alone. Tandem to Darrel's day-to-day routine are the adventures of his favourite children's book characters, Honeydog and Little Burp. Their search for a home leads the dog and duck duo to an understanding of family, while Darrel's ease in the world illustrates just how his mother has paved the path for him to be without her. 10 Days on Earth asks: if you were alone but didn't know it, would you feel lonely? Softcover, 78 pp. $16.95. August: An Afternoon in the Country Jean Marc Dalpe A hot August afternoon. The third day of a stifling late summer heat wave. An old family farm where four generations still live under the same roof. Monique has driven out from the city with her new fiance, and a special dinner is being prepared to celebrate their upcoming wedding. But nothing is what it seems, and despite lazy, rambling conversations on the verandah and the comings and goings of a large household, cracks begin to appear and tensions mount, leading to a startling, explosive end to the afternoon. A taut family drama that chronicles the end of a way of life. Softcover, 91 pp. $17.95. Relatively Harmless Jenny Munday A darkly funny, touching play about life, death, and the way in which a father's stroke paralyzes an entire family. The patriarch of the Nightshade family, "the General," has suffered a stroke. Relatively Harmless portrays the challenges of a man who is an invalid, through both his eyes and the eyes of his family of caregivers. His illness reveals fissures in the family, past and present. Softcover, 92 pp. $17.95. Dreams Wajdi Mouawad A young man enters a hotel room and spends a sleepless night, jotting words down on paper, the prelude, perhaps, to a novel in the making. Haunted by his imagination and by the characters who appear to himm, the writer, slowly but surely, will recognize someone who will complete this world: the Hotelkeeper, a woman who has never been haunted by such questions, but who has suddenly become a victim of fate. Softcover, 60 pp. $16.95. Chimera Wendy Lill The ethics of stem-cell research - in particular the creation of cross-species "chimeras," the mixing of genetic material from humans and animals - is a hotly debated topic with political, scientific, moral and spiritual dimensions. While such experiments could hold the key to curing many diseases, to their detractors they conjure up everything from visions of divine retribution to sci-fi nightmares from B-grade horror films. To explore this controversy, Wendy Lill created a chimera of her own: a hybrid play that's part Parliament Hill expose, part examination of the efforts to regulate genetic engineering, Softcover, 96 pp. $15.95. Isolated: Two Plays Greg MacArthur In Get Away, a strange malaise is leaving people listless and apathetic. David escapes to a cabin in the woods, where he discovers two hauntingly beautiful teenagers. Part fairytale and part horrorshow, Get Away is a haunting look at the destructive nature of longing and our desperate need for love. In Recovery, people around the world are addicted to a mysterious susbstance. Following three residents of a recovery facility in Antarctica, Recovery is a subtle and unsettling play of Orwellian proportions about the commodification of fear, the oppression of the individual and the blinding consequences of a medicalized society. Softcover, 156 pp. $17.95. Another Country & Bloom Guillermo Verdecchia Published together here for the first time, these two plays constitute an unsparing interrogation of a world perpetually at war--the Argentina of Guillermo Verdecchia's youth has blossomed into our contemporary global reality. Softcover, 143 pp. $17.95. Copper Thunderbird Marie Clements Copper Thunderbird is a play based on the life of Norval Morrisseau. Captured by the power-lines which Morrisseau boldly defined in his art were the colours he experienced between his Ojibwa cosmology, his life on the street, and his spiritual and philosophical transformations to become the Father of Contemporary Native Art and a Grand Shaman. Softcover, 82 pp. $15.95. Dreary and Izzy Tara Beagan 1975, Lethbridge Alberta. When the Monaghan sisters lose their parents in a car accident, Deirdre remains as the sole caregiver to her older sister, Isabelle. Adopted as an infant from the neighbouring Blood Indian Reserve, Isabelle is loving, joyous, and severely affected by fetal alcohol syndrome a time before this disorder had a name. Deirdre is barely staying afloat under the strain of this reality, when hope arrived in the form of a gorgeous vacuum salesman Freddie Seven Horses. Both sisters find in Freddie a new world of unexplored emotions and ideas, where Freddie is a port in a storm. Softcover, 90 pp. $17.95. Life After God: The Play Michael Lewis MacLennan Adapted from the short story by Douglas Coupland, Life After God centres around the sensitive, eccentric Scout. It tells the story of six friends who went to high school together, and how their lives unravel fifteen years later as they face the challenges and disillusionment of adulthood. At turns both funny and moving, Life After God is a freewheeling, theatrically spectacular examination of our quest for transcendence. Softcover, 68 pp. $16.95. Public Lies and Other Plays Robert Fothergill The collection contains four of Robert Fothergill's plays from the past twenty years, imncluding Detaining Mr.Trotsky, Public Lies, Borderline, and The Dershowitz Protocol. Softcover, 218 pp. $26.95. The Betty Lambert Reader Betty Lambert & Cynthia Zimmerman (editor) Readers will find common threads of concern - moral, political, metaphysical, aesthetic - that link these disparate works of fiction. The Betty Lambert Reader contains short stories, novel excerpts and full plays, including: "The Pony," "Guilt," Jennie's Story, and Under the Skin. Softcover, 424 pp. $45.00. Glory Days: A Play and History of the '46 Stelco Strike Bill Freeman Glory Days describes Stelco in the 1930s and early '40s as a workplace rank with discrimination and favouritism. The workers lived under a form of tyranny where the boss was king and their needs and wishes were simply disregarded. This is the story of the muscle, bone and heart that goes into making steel. Softcover, 150 pp. $18.95. The Oxford Roof Climber's Rebellion Stephen Massicotte Two heroes return home from the First World War. Lawrence of Arabia is a leader without an army. Robert Graves is a poet who can't forget. Suffering the aftermath of the war and forseeing the dawning of new ones, the Oxford Roof Climbers, the Benevolent Order of, lay siege to a sleepy university town. A stand against stands, a dare to end all daring; the two haunted men - armed with a talent for practical jokes - grasp at love and dare to imagine a new world. Softcover, 63 pp. $16.95. Head: The Musical Debbie Patterson The story of Anne Boleyn has haunted women for centuries; as the second wife of King Henry VIII she was executed after failing to produce a male heir. Debbie Patterson's new take on this story becomes an examination of sex, death and faith. Head follows Anne through the loss of her husband's affection to her date with the Swordsman of Calais. Softcover, 110 pp. $14.95. Back to top

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Real Estate Allana Harkin A two act comedy with some interesting character revelations to add to the mix. 2 m, 2f. Softcover, 77 pp. $17.95.   Return: The Sarajevo Project TheatreFront Five years after fleeing the war in Sarajevo and escaping to Canada, Tarik Nakas returns to Bosnia - with his new Canadian wife - to face the family he left behind. With his sudden reappearance, those he left must now reconcile their love for Tarik with their anger at his betrayal. Softcover, 56 pp. $17.59. In Gabriel's Kitchen Salvatore Antonio In Gabriel's Kitchen follows the Montesano family as they attempt to navigate throught the storm of grief and denial, following the suicide of its youngest member; the vibrant Gabriel. The surviving son, Marco, dutifully returns to the childhood home he left after his brother's death, to spend Christmas with his mother and father. Softcover, 108 pp. $19.95. The December Man (L'homme de decembre) Colleen Murphy In the aftermath of the 1989 Montreal Massacre, Benoit and Kathleen do everything they can to help their beloved son cope with his guilt and rage. Softcover, 61 pp. $16.95. Banana Boys Leon Aureus & Terry Woo Banana Boys is a smart, contemporary and wickedly funny play about five young Asian-Canadian men wrestling with issues of race, identity and the death of a friend. It is one story, fragmented into five and reconstructed throughout the course of their lives. Softcover, 93 pp. $17.95. Bad Acting Teachers Sky Gilbert A young actor in search of good training visits three teachers who advertise private acting lessons - a Canadian B-movie actor, a new-age therapist, and a gay agent. Seeing each of the teachers seperately, he is progressively assaulted, insulted, and molested. Softcover, 60 pp. $17.95. Omniscience Tim Carlson Omniscience subtly and relentlessly begs the question of how many of our freedoms we have already lost to the institutions engaged in our surveillance "for our own protection" and the uses they make of the power over our lives we have voluntarily abrogated to them through our support of such phenomena as The Patriot Act, anti-terrorism legislation and Operation Enduring Freedom. Softcover, 95 pp. $15.95. In the Eyes of God Raul Sanchez Inglis What is being fought over in this exercise of greed versus avarice is the promise of a dream--a dream of riches, fame, success and public adulation everyone is willing to pay for, to offer their bodies for, to sacrifice their loved ones for, to die for. If the corporate hedonism of America that gave us Robert Milliken, Gordon Gecko and Enron is reflected in the eyes of God, then those eyes are made, as we might have suspected, of celluloid. Softcover, 144 pp. $17.95. A Few Words Will Do Lionel Kearns When a person writes "this is what happened, this is what I remember, this is what I saw, this is what I know," any reader stands in for and thereby becomes the absent "I" or "eye" of that written text. The deconstruction of this process of language, metaphor, is what preoccupies Lionel Kearns in A Few Words Will Do. Softcover, 128 pp. $16.95. At the Zenith of the Empire Stewart Lemoine Inspired by Fallen Empires, At the Zenith of the Empire creates a swirling speculative scenario about the impact of this very special day on the lives of Edmonton's earliest theatre-goers and theatre practitioners. The Divine Sarah Bernhardt herself narrates this sumptuous romp of reminiscence, as the characters visit such local landmarks as Ada Boulevard, the Groat Ravine, newly annexed Strathcona, and the not-quite-completed High Level Bridge. Softcover, 134 pp. $18.95. Hellfire Pass Vittorio Rossi It is 1956, and Silvio Rosato, a decorated World War II veteran, shows up at the house of his father, Eduardo Rosato, who had abandoned him and his mother in Italy in 1920 to start a new life and family for himself in Chicago. Silvio's Italian-American half-siblings, Eddie and Ida, are fascinated by this stranger who has suddenly appeared in their lives. Handsome, assured and accomplished, there is something not quite right, something sinister about this visitor, with his air of familiarity and the distant, impenetrable look in his eyes. This mystery begins Hellfire Pass, part one of Rossi's autobiographical A Carpenter's Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays. Softcover, 128 pp. $16.95. Hippies and Bolsheviks and Other Plays Amiel Gladstone Hippies and Bolsheviks and Other Plays introduces an eclectic cast of characters and announces a formidable new voice in Canadian drama. In The Wedding Pool, a trio of dissatisfied single friends decide to each contribute fifty dollars a month to a pool to be collected by the first one to marry. But when one of the friends starts dating the bank teller who opened their account, it turns out that there's more than money at stake. In Lena's Car, a woman whose marriage is on the verge of collapse reflects on how it got to that point, harkening back to a youth when things were both more simple and more complicated. In Hippies and Bolsheviks, set in 1970's British Columbia, the young and passionate Star stumbles home from a Led Zeppelin concert with a draft dodger and sets in motion a freaky love triangle with big-time consequences. Can these young dropouts hold on to their ideals as The Establishment closes in? Softcover, 151 pp. $18.95. Two Hands Clapping Kit Brennan A goldmine for actors seeking two-person plays, Two Hands Clapping features full-length, one act, and short scripts for two actors, as well as in-depth interviews with playwrights. The playwrights are Canadian and include established writers, as well as voices that are just beginning to make their mark in Canadian theatre. Plays include: Afterglow by Peter Boychuk, Lola Shuffles the Cards by Kit Brennan. Jane's Thumb by Kelley Jo Burke, 3... 2... 1 by Nathan Cuckow and Chris Craddock, The Dinner Party by Rose Cullis, The House Wife by Ruth Lawrence and Sherry White, Poochwater by Mike McPhaden, and The File by Greg Nelson. Softcover, 330 pp.  $24.95. Carole Frechette: Two Plays John Murrell In John and Beatrice, high above the city, Beatrice sits on the 33rd floor of an office tower waiting for the right man to respond to her ad. When John appears, the games begin. But if he wins, what then? A play about the difficulty of connection and the meaning of love. In Helen's Necklace, Helen wanders through a Middle Eastern city looking for a lost pearl necklace. In language as shimmering as the strand of pearls itself -- its value isn't what we initially think --Frechette brings Helen into contact with a series of people, from a friendly taxi driver to a distraught mother and an angrily imprisioned man. Helen's world is irrevocably changed by her search for a trincket. Softcover, 89 pp. $17.95. Anthology of Quebec Women's Plays in English Translation Volume 1 (1966-1986) Louise H. Forsyth Louise H. Forsyth brings to English Canada some of the best plays by women that Quebec has to offer, in translation from the original French. Covering a diverse range of subject matter, many of these plays are being published in English for the first time. Softcover, 570 pp. $44.00. Blacks Don't Bowl Vadney S. Haynes What do you do when your vision of the world and yourself is shaken to the core? When two Black Montreal artists create a show from images of pimps, thugs and dancehall queens, community leader Frank Simmons is outraged and tries to censor the demeaning images. What else is a man who is highly opinionated -especially about being Black and the Black experience - to do? What Frank does not count on is art's ability to transform as he is forced to confront himself in a way that is both disturbing and revealing. Little will be the same afterwards for Frank, the artists, and perhaps Black people everywhere. Softcover,64 pp. $14.95. Miss Julie August Strindberg David French's adaptation of August Strindberg's disturbing drama of the affair between the daughter of a count and the count's man-servant has an eerie, contemporary feel about it. French has sharpened the dynamics of the original conflict of desire, anger, jealousy, dominance, submission and deceit while remaining true to the historical background. His riveting version of Miss Julie brings to the foreground the conflicts of identity and faith that lead to the rending of social norms and conventions. As with his adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, French pays homage to another master dramatist whose work illuminates the depths and conflicts of the human condition. Softcover, 96 pp. $15.95. Two Steps from the Stars Jean-Rock Gaudreault & LInda Gaboriau Junior counts his steps all the way home. When you get right down to it, the world is not so big, especially when your too-strict dad takes up so much space, and when the schoolyard is buzzing with the rumour that you're in love with the weirdest girl in the whole school. And here she is in person: Maggie. She appears on the sidewalk just as Junior makes a big decision: this very night, he's going to make a run for it to achieve his great dream of becoming an astronaut... Sometimes the trains of childhood run very late. And rumours have a bit of truth to them...And what what if the new world were only two steps away? Softcover, 35 pp. $13.95. Love and Human Remains Brad Fraser David McMillan is a former actor, current waiter on the verge of turning thirty. Together with his book-reviewing roommate, Candy, and his best friend, Bernie, David encounters a number of seductive strangers in their search for love and sex. However, the games turn ugly when it appears one of their number might be a serial killer. A compelling study of young adults groping for meaning in a senseless world. Softcover, 103 pp. $18.95. The Courier and Other Plays Vern Thiessen Four one-act plays which span Thiessen's career from 1987 to 2005, The Courier and Other Plays share common themes of of loss, change and disbelief, all developing around Mennonite characters. He has crafted intricate, believable characters whom we love and hate, often at the same time, then shears their lives apart so they must grope their way through a world without the hierarchies, patriarchies, and beliefs that once comforted and defined them. Softcover, 100 pp. $19.95. High Sticking Mark Brownell High Sticking, a collection of four short plays about hockey, explores the Canadian passion for the sport...as well as some of our other national obsessions! In Coach Kingston Tells It Like It Is, the coach educates a minor hockey dad on the importance of anger, hatred, loathing, giving 115% and the immortal soul. Eleanor, St. Etheldrum's own 14-year-old field hockey goon, ruminates on the finer points of the game - and Karl Marx, Louis Vuitton bags and much more - from her vantage point in the penalty box. In Life Without Gretzky, an Edmonton performance artist mourns The Great One's retirement. And Table Top features the first-ever table-top hockey brawl, as an Anglophone Leafs fan, and an American Rangers fan discover many points of contention... along with an enduring love for the "Big Board." Softcover, 76 pp. $14.95. Back to top

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Last modified July 15, 2003 . Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.