Canadian Plays by Playwright: T

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.

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Canadian Anthologies

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The Berlin Blues
Drew Hayden Taylor
A consortium of German developers shows up to a fictional Otter Lake Reserve with a seemingly irresistible offer to improve local economy: the creation of OjibwayWorld, a Native theme park designed to attract European tourists to this new destination resort, causing hilarious personal and political divisions within the local community. The Berlin Blues concludes Drew Hayden Taylor's Blues quartet, showcasing contemporary stereotypes of First Nations people, including a fair number of these that originate from Indigenous communities themselves, to the often outraged delight of his international audiences. Softcover, 96 pp. $15.95.

400 Kilometres
Drew Haden Taylor
This is the third play in Drew Hayden Taylor's hilarious and heart-wrenching identity-politics trilogy. Janice Wirth, a thirty-something urban professional, having discovered her roots as the Ojibway orphan Grace Wabung in Someday, and having visited her birth family on the Otter Lake Reserve in Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, is pregnant, and must now come to grips with the question of her "true identity." M-2, F-3. Softcover, 127 pp. $16.95.

Fearless Warriors
Drew Hayden Taylor
Internationally acclaimed as a playwright, screen-writer, comic and sardonic commentator on the endless gaffs, absurdities and the profound and painful misunderstandings that continue to characterize social interactions between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples, Taylor's stories in Fearless Warriors are a full frontal assault on stereotypes of all kinds and an edifying affirmation of humanity unlike anything else in fiction. 192 pp. $19.95.

alterNatives
Drew Hayden Taylor
Angel, an urban Native science fiction writer and Colleen, a Jewish intellectual who teaches Native literature have a dinner party. The menu is short hand for the irreconcilable differences about to come to a head: roast moose and vegetarian lasagna. $17.95.

The Boy in the Treehouse & The Girl Who Loved Horses: Two Plays
Drew Hayden Taylor
In this collection of two plays about the process of children becoming adults, Drew Hayden Taylor works his delightfully comic and bitter-sweet magic on the denials, misunderstandings and preconceptions which persist between Native and Colonial culture in North America. 159 pp. $17.95.

The Bootlegger Blues
Drew Hayden Taylor
Set on a reserve, this play follows the plight of Martha, a church-going, teetotaling woman who finds herself stuck with 143 cases of beer after a church fundraiser fails. To the horror of her son, a special constable on the reserve, she decides to bootleg the beer. The pace is fast and vigorous in this romantic situation comedy. M-3, F-3. 93 pp. $11.95.

Toronto at Dreamer's Rock & Education is Our Right: Two One-Act Plays
Drew Taylor
In these two plays, Drew Taylor delves into the past and speculates about the future as he examines the dilemmas facing young Native Canadians today. Combining humour, passion, spirituality, and tough realism, this play will appeal especially to young adult readers. 139 pp. $11.95.

Further Adventures of a Blue-Eyed Ojibway Funny, You Don't Look Like One Two
Drew Hayden Taylor
In this sequel to Funny, You Don't Look Like One, Drew Taylor presents an all new second collection of stories and articles which offer a humourous and insightful look into Aboriginal cultures and issues. 148 pp. $15.95.

Funny, You Don't Look Like One
Drew Hayden Taylor
This revised edition of Drew Hayden's original collection of musings and observations about being a Native person living in Canada, is humourous, astute, honest, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. 142 pp. $14.95.

The Buz'Gem Blues
Drew Hayden Taylor
This is the third play in Drew Hayden Taylor's ongoing zany, outrageous, often farcical examination of both Native and non-Native stereotypes. The Buz'Gem Blues is about how our ritualized and institutionalized systems of maintaining and policing cliches prevents us from recognizing our common humanity in each other.
125 pp. $16.95.

Someday
Drew Hayden Taylor
Anne Wabung's daughter was taken away by children's aid workers when the girl was only a toddler. It is Christmastime, 35 years later, and Anne's yearning to see her now-grown daughter is stronger than ever. When the family is finally reunited, however, the dreams of neither woman are fulfilled.
$12.95.

Only Drunks and Children Tell The Truth
Drew Hayden Taylor
Janice Wirth, a Native woman adopted and raised in the city, must come to grips with the death of her birth mother when her blood sister shows up at her condo with her boyfriend and her brother.
112 pp. $16.95.

Chapel Arm
Step Taylor
The characters in Chapel Arm navigate their way through a minefield of love, obsession, sex, loyalty, and betrayal as they seek to reconcile the past with their present reality. The raw emotion of Chapel Arm is balanced with a full measure of Newfoundland humour and a powerful sense of language. Softcover, 92 pp. $14.95.

Yichud (Seclusion)
Julie Tepperman
It's Chaim and Rachel'ss wedding, and the audience is their guests. Yichud (Seculsion) directly confronts the tensions that exist in the Orthodox Jewish world between tradition and modernity, powerfully dramatizing issues of love, marriage, respect, sex, honour and duty. 2F 4M. Softcover, 139 pp. $16.95.

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.

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Lenin's Embalmers
Vern Thiessen
Based on the true story of two sceintists in !920s Russia assigned with the impossible task of making Vladimir Lenin live forever, this is a darkly hilarious and fiercely original play. 7M 1F. Softcover, 120 pp. $16.95.

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.

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.

Shakespeare's Will
Vern Thiessen
Vern Thiessen provides voice in his latest work to one of the most silent characters in history: Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare. The plays sheds light on unexplored aspects of Hathaway's life by looking through the eyes and heart of the woman who spent a lifetime with -- and without -- the great poet. This work is the celebration of a life unbowed by tragedy and unapologetic in the face of public scorn. Softcover, 78 pp. $15.95.

Einstein's Gift
Vern Theissen
The ideal of science -- to serve humanity -- is shown in sharp contrast against the reality of political will, nationalism and war. Based on the life and work of Nobel Laureate Dr. Fritz Haber. M-5, F-2. Softcover, 108 pp. $16.95.

Blowfish
Verna Thiessen
What do food, funerals, the Edmonton tornado, and Mila Mulroney have in common? Join the elegant and debonair caterer Lumiere, as he serves up a whole new eating experience. M-1 45 pp. $11.00.

Apple
Vern Thiessen
Andy is in trouble. Downsized from his job, his marriage in crises, he meets a mysterious young woman who he looks to for salvation. But when his wife becomes seriously ill, Andy must make a choice: care for an estranged wife, or run away with a woman he knows little about. A haunting tale of sex, secrets and second chances. M-1, F-2. 85 pp. $15.95.

The Bush Ladies: In Their Own Words
Molly Thom
In this clever play, Molly Thom uses the words of the Bush Ladies -- the first ladies of Canadian literature: Susanna Moodie, Catharine Parr Traill, Anne Langton, and Anna Jameson -- to illuminate the immigrant experience. It is a spirited and dramatic romp through a vivid era in our history. F-4. 66 pp. $12.95.

I, Claudia
Kristen Thomson
Claudia is "an official pre-teen" still reeling from her parents' divorce. Her father is getting re-married, she has a science fair project due, and she is in the physical and emotional throes of puberty. Finding refuge in the basement of her school, Claudia discovers the pain at the centre of her brimming child's heart. F-1. Softcover, 24 pp. $14.95. Now on DVD!

Two Weeks, Twice a Year
Colin Thomas
This is the story about the relationship between a father and son six years after the parents' divorce. The central character is broken into two selves. There's Joe, as he is today, at twelve, and there's Gogo, Joe's alter-ego, who's six; both of them want to know: "Does Dad really love me?" The question is explored with humour and the play's answer strives to be both realistic and optimistic.
$12.95.

Judith Thompson

Such Creatures
Judith Thompson
Two deeply-linked monologues show us the astonishing courage and resilience of young human beings during earth-shattering moments. Each piece introduces us to a fifteen-year-old girl: the first speaks to us from contemporary Toronto, and the second from Auschwitz, 1945. Thanks to their shared love of Shakespeare, each girl believes in miracles when there is almost no hope, and in humour when there is nothing but fear. Softcover, 49 pp. $16.95.

Enoch Arden in the Hope Shelter
Judith Thompson
Jabber and Ciel are two homeless lovers who are trying to create a performance piece for the shelter's talent show; Ciel is catatonic and will only express herself through Strauss's music on the piano and through classical song, and Jabber moves in and out of psychotic delusion; their lives are desperate but they find peace and refuge and blissful love in performing their own wild version of Tennyson's classic epic poem "Enoch Arden." This is a play about the truly redemptive and empowering nature of art, and how it can be recreated and reclaimed by anyone with the hunger to do so. Sosftcover, 55 pp. $17.95.

Sled
Judith Thompson
Sled begins and ends in the Canadian North, a world of unforgiving isolation and mystical change. The other landscape is a Toronto neighbourhood which proves to be equally harsh and mythical under its quiet surface. This is a play of tragic destiny that addresses the "painful infection in our strong, our red heart," the red heart being the red maple leaf on our flag, and the pain: the painful mysteries of being human. Softcover, 134 pp. $14.95.

Capture Me
Judith Thompson
Judith Thompson writes with passionate intelligence about the things that matter most. Juxtaposing lived and imagined realities of hate and love, fear and hope, quirky humour and bitter knowledge, Capture Me connects the lives of a kindergarten teacher, the traumatised Islamic immmigrant with whom she falls in love, the insanely abusive former husband who is stalking her, and the icy, mortally ill mother whom she struggles to understand. Softcover, 72 pp. $16.95.

Perfect Pie
Judith Thompson
In the course of an afternoon's reunion between two long-estranged women, a buried memory and two teenagers' wild secret slam into the present. A potent drama. Softcover, 91 pp. $14.95.

The Crackwalker
Judith Thompson
Theresa is sexy, seductive, and mentally challenged. Worshipped by her boyfriend, she turns tricks at $5, is addicted to Tim Hortons' doughnuts, lies without thinking, and overflows with endless kindness, but she continues to hold on to her limitless innocence. First produced in 1980, this Canadian classic continues to move audiences with its raw depiction of the music, the dialect, and the ugly realities of the inner city.
2m, 3f . Softcover, 113 pp. $16.95.

White Biting Dog
Judith Thompson
A suicidal young man is rescued by a white dog who gives him a mission: to save his father from death. His mission flounders until the dog's owner helps him by bringing his reluctant mother back into the family.
M-3, F-2. $16.95.

Lion in the Streets
Judith Thompson
A young girl, Isobel, delves into the secret lives of her neighbours as she searches for her killer
M-2, F-4. $14.95.

The Farm Show
Paul Thompson
Theatre Passe Muraille spent a summer in the farming region around Clinton, Ontario to gather the material for this delightful portrayal of rural living. M-3, F-3. 107 pp. $13.95.

Jazz Play Trio: 3 Jazz Plays
Charles Tidler
With characteristic blend of outrageousness and restraint, Charles Tidler presents variations on a theme, like a jazz soloist's improvisation on a riff, a metaphor for life lived passionately and intensely. Includes the plays: Fabulous Yellow Roman Candle (M-2, F-1., jazz trio), Straight Ahead (F-1.), and Blind Dancers (M-1, F-1.). 119 pp. $14.95.

The Drowning Girls & Comrades
Beth Graham & Charlie Tomlinson
The Drowing Girls is the post-death tale of three drowned women who reflect on the misconceptions of love, married life, and the not-so-happily ever after. Based on actual events, Comrades brings to life the imprisonment of two Italian immigrants as it exposes their struggles and agonies. Softcover, $17.95.


Still the Night
Theresa Tova
Still the Night is a celebration of survival -- the story of two young women who were separated from their parents during the Second World War, and wander through Poland, pretending not to be Jewish. F-2. 95 pp. $12.95.

Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre
Larry Tremblay
Was John Wilkes Booth the first reality star? What would Abraham Lincoln google if he had the chance? What would a re-enactment of Lincoln's assasination look like in the hand of Laurel & Hardy? These questions and more are explored, probed and laughed at in this madcap and, at times, haunting new play from Larry Tremblay. Softcover, 95 pp. $16.95.


Talking Bodies
Larry Tremblay
Talking Bodies collects Larry Tremblay's four stunning solo performances for the stage. Thematically related, each deals with the reconstruction of an identity which through trauma, illusion, accident or destiny has been threatened, destabilized, broken or dispersed. With an introduction by Jane M. Moss. 208 pp. $19.95.

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Michel Tremblay

The Black Notebook
Michel Tremblay
In the heart of the Latin Quarter, meeting place of marginal characters of all sorts, Celine Poulin works the night shift at a cheap and popular restaurant, the Select, serving hamburger platters and spaghetti and meatballs to student misfits, transvestites, hookers, and queens from the Main--Montreal's colourful Saint-Laurent Boulevard. Hanging out with a theatre company in her off hours, Celine sees opening before her a world where it is not only possible, but even desirable, to pretend. When the director offers her a role in The Trojan Woman, the die is cast. The Black Notebook is Celine's diary, her account of her trials, her expectations and cruel dissapointments, because this young waitress has her own dramatic story to tell, even if only to herself: Celine is a midget. With a transcendent eloquence and compassion, Michel Tremblay celebrates how it is possible for Celine to embrace her difference and to flourish--despite that difference; or perhaps, because of it. Softcover, 221 pp. $19.95.

The Driving Force
Michel Tremblay
Claude, 55, visits his father Alex, 77, in an Alzheimer's ward, intimately tending to his bodily functions and needs while hopelessly trying to reach his silent, vacant father with a series of monologues . Then, in an astonishing and eerie reversal of roles, the second act opens with Alex visiting his son Claude in the same Alzheimer's ward, and now it is Alex's turn to rant. M-2. Softcover, 64 pp. $15.95.

Past Perfect
Michel Tremblay
In Albertine in Five Times, Michel Tremblay portrayed one of his most unforgettable characters during five decades of her life, beginning in her thirties. Now, in Past Perfect, we meet Albertine at twenty, and discover the dark secret of her being. In the eyes of her family, she is a soul on fire that devours everything she touches, but in her own eyes, Albertine is sensitive, selfless and devoted to the object of her desires. Displaying the contradictions between the way we see ourselves and the way others see us, Past Perfect is a picture taken of an imagination in chains. M-2; F-3. Softcover, 94 pp. $15.95.

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
Michel Tremblay
Tremblay's homage to his mother who did not live to see her son's worldwide success. $15.95.

Hosanna
Michel Tremblay
Hosanna is a man dressed as a woman dressed as Elizabeth Taylor dressed as Cleopatra, returning to his apartment after being disgraced by those whose approval he desperately sought. A new translation by John Van Burek and Bill Glassco of the classic play by Michel Tremblay. $15.95.

Les Belles Soeurs
Michel Tremblay
15 women related by blood or marriage and1 million trading stamps all in one small Montreal kitchen... you can imagine the rest. $16.95.

The Guid Sisters
Michel Tremblay
The Guid Sisters, a translation of Tremblay's classic, Les Belles Soeurs, in modern Scots, in an energetic and earthly vernacular with a distinctive sound system equal to joual. F-1.5. 121 pp. $10.00
 

Marcel Pursued by the Hounds
Michel Tremblay
An extended dialogue between the characters Marcel and Therese, illuminated by a chorus of fates, it is Michel Tremblay's toughest, most uncompromising play to date. $16.95.

The Real World?
Michel Tremblay
"A virtuoso piece of writing by a master craftsman, now exploring an intensely personal phase of his artistic career." The Toronto Star. $15.95.
 

La Maison Suspendue
Michel Tremblay
It is Victoire's anger at being forced away from the family house and her sorrow at being separated from her dreamy, impractical, fiddle playing brother that fuel the machinery of eighty years of family relationships. A rich, emotional, sweeping drama of anger and sorrow spanning three generations. M-3, F-2. (doubling) 101 pp. $16.95.

 
The First Quarter of Moon
Michel Tremblay
Set in the summer of 1952, a decade after the events described in The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, The First Quarter of Moon is an engaging addition to Michel Tremblay's series of autobiographical fiction.
$19.95.

Bambi and Me
Michel Tremblay
Bursting with wit, charm, and the profound resonance of youthful self-discovery, Bambi and Me provides Tremblay's many fans with a clear sense of the orgins of the talent which has made Michel Tremblay one of the most important and fascinating playwrights and novelists of the 20th century. 157 pp. $17.95.
 

Twelve Opening Acts
Michel Tremblay
With these riveting stories, Michel Tremblay offers the reader an entrance into his discovery of the theatricality of life itself- the personal dramas of his homosexuality, the death of his mother, even the completely unintentional, almost apolitical creation of his national awareness, are recounted in these telling memoirs. 190 pp. $19.95.

 
Albertine in Five Times
Michel Tremblay
Michel Trembay's well-loved and award-winning play presents the story of one woman, Albertine, at five different times in her life. This new, updated translation by Linda Gaboriau, commissioned for the prestigious Shaw Festival, celebrates the twenty-five years this classic Canadian drama has intrigued and delighted audiences around the world.

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Bonjour, La, Bonjour
Michel Tremblay
Serge returns from Europe to confront his family, the kinds of love they offer him and the kinds of love he needs from them. M-2, F-6 86 pp. $15.95.

Forever Yours Marie-Lou
Michel Tremblay
Leopold, Marie-Louise and their daughters Carmen and Manon are unable to communicate their frustration and longings, trapped in the web of the traditional family cell. M-1, F-3. 80 pp. $15.95.

La Duchesse de Langeais and Other Plays
Michel Tremblay
A collection of five short plays by Michel Tremblay: La Duchesse de Langeais (F-1.), Berthe (F-1.), Gloria Star (M-2, F-7), Johnny Mangano and His Astonishing Dogs (M-3, F-1.), and Surprise, Surprise (F-3.). 125 pp. $16.95.

En Pieces Detachees
Michel Tremblay
This play concerns Helene, a waitress who lives with her cartoon-watching husband, their daughter, and her elderly mother. During the course of the drama, Helene's mentally challenged brother, Claude, runs away from the brothers at the sanitorium and returns home for a little visit. M-2, F-4. 108 pp. $16.95.

Remember Me
Michel Tremblay
Two ex-lovers meet and compare and confess their fears and disillusionments. M-2 5.8 pp. $15.95.

The Real World?
Michel Tremblay
An earnest young playwright uses his very real family conflicts to create a parallel reality -- but does he have the right to expose his family's ghosts? M-3, F-4. 75 pp. $15.95.

Impromptu on Nuns' Island
Michel Tremblay
An opera diva, Patricia, meets her Waterloo singing Salome at the Opera Bastille in Paris. In an impromptu get-together in her Nuns' Island penthouse, on the afternoon of her return from Europe, her mother, a popular Montreal stage and television actress, and her idealistic committed-to-new-work daughter lie in wait for her. M-1, F-3. 95 pp. $16.95.

Sainte-Carmen of the Main
Michel Tremblay
Carmen returns to the Rodeo after studying yodelling in Nashville. She begins to write her own songs but is brutally murdered. The show goes on, with her rival playing the lead; cultural identity becomes an aberration in time. M-3, F-4., chorus 77 pp. $15.95.

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Last modified July 18, 2012.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.