Canadian Plays by Playwright: B

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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Sistahs
Maxine Bailey & Sharon M. Lewis
Five strong, but different women, come together for the symbolic act of making soup in this play about tradition, memories, and the hard truths of life. Co-written by two Caribbean women. F-5. 61 pp. $13.95.

Molly's Veil
Sharon Bajer
As the first female Mayor of a major Canadian city, Charlotte Whitton took her place in history books when she rose to office as the Mayor of Ottawa in 1952. Publicly known as an extraordinarily witty and colourful character who wasn't afraid to interrogate her mostly male opponents, she shielded her private life from public view. From the time the two met at Queen's University, Charlotte Whitton and Margaret Grier's special relationship was born and chronicled over the years through letters to each other. $14.95.

Bat Masterson's Last Regular Job
Bill Ballantyne
This compelling play depicts the lengths that an aging hero of the Old West, Bat Masterson, will go to to find worth and acceptance in turn-of-the-century Manhattan. M-4, F-1. 96 pp. $9.95.

It is Solved by Walking
Catherine Banks
When Margaret leanrs of the death of her former husband, she recalls their earnest days together as Ph.D. candidates, beginning a journey through her past. Told through the sensations of Wallace Stevens's poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Softcover, 76 pp. $16.95.

Bone Cage
Catherine Banks
Bone Cage is a poetic and darkly humorous portrayal of life in Nova Scotia, where stripping the enviroment means stripping your soul. This play examines how young people in rural communities, employed in the destruction of the enviroment they cherish, treat the people they love at the end of their shift and the difficulties in growing and hanging onto dreams in a world where they are seen as impractical or weak. Softcover, 103 pp. $18.95.


The Room with Five Walls: The Trials of Victor Hoffman
Byrna Barclay
This poetic drama in two acts thrusts an audience inside the disordered mind of Victor Hiffman several decades after the Peterson murders. The Room With Five Walls' strong poetic structure leads us to see what went wrong on the day of the Shell Lake massacre and shows us a bewildered, lonely, divided man. Beautifully written, Barclay has shown us a soul sitting judgement on itself. 3M, 1W, Chorus & Others. Softcover, 118 pp. $16.95.

Inspiration Point
John Garfield Barlow
Paul, Joseph, and Peter are stranded at Inspiration Point. WIth no one to call and nothing else to do but get high, the boys argue about life on the res and the growing struggle of a community threatened by internal and external assimilationist forces. 4M. Softcover, 130 pp. $16.95.



Carrying the Calf
Shirley Barrie
Four women of different ages and cultural backgrounds meet in a self-defense class for women. Each of the women is experiencing a form of violence in her life. After initial mistrust and misunderstandings, they help each other to move towards a spiritual as well as physical strength. F-4. 46 pp. $10.95.

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.

Dog Park: The Musical
Jahnna Beechman, Malcolm Hillgartner & Michael Hume
Follow Daisy, the sassy Westie, through her misadventures in the singles scene with Itchy, Champ, and Bogie at the hippest place in town: Central Bark, where every dog has its day and love conquers all. 3m, 1f. Softcover, 69 pp. $12.99.

Inuk
Henry Beissel
Presenting the two basic dimensions of Inuit experience (the natural and the supernatural) Inuk explores, on an archetypal level, the fundamental human experience of life and death, and the need to understand and accept our place in nature in order to survive. Published here, in both English and French. For 5. (or more) actors. 116 pp. $17.95.

Colours in the Storm
Jim Betts
Colours in the Storm is a heartfelt play with songs that tells the story of one of Canada's best loved painters, Tom Thompson. This is the story of his love of art, his passion for life, and his mysterious death. M-3, F-2. 194 pp. $19.95.

In Vitro
Yvan Bienvenue
After killing his girlfriend and her doctor, Francois collects the foetal remains of their unborn child and holes up in a isolated cabin with a born-again Christian named Benoit. What follows are five days of hell. M-2, F-1. 71 pp. $12.95.

The Taster
Genevieve Billette
At fifteen, Nils is a sensorial genius. Endowed with overdeveloped taste buds, he becomes a microchip taster for O.B.D. Enterprises. The taste of technology allows him to forget the fearsome flavour of art he bit into as a child. In this world, no trace of humanity is tolerated and all works of art have long since been banished to a sealed vault. But Sasha, their elderly keeper, intends to end this general amnesia. He pushes Nils to discover the taste of love, hoping to breach the hearts and minds that have become hardened to life, its violence, and excess. Softcover, 82 pp. $17.95.


Crime Against Humanity
Genevieve Billette
In an industrialist's office, over the course of two hours, a scene is played out which will detemine the fate of his company's growth. Wanting to expand his factory and maximize production -- and create 300 much-needed jobs -- the Industrialist attempts to buy his neighbour (and employee) Kalr's land. But Kalr isn't easily convinced and the ensuing negotiations turn sour, potentially destroying the Industrialist's family unit. Softcover, 60 pp. $16.95.

The Elephant Song
Nicholas Billon
An eminent psychiatrist has vanished from his office. The last person to have seen him is Michael, a troubled patient obsessed with all things elepahants. Dr. Greenberg, the hospital director, is determind to question Michael, ignoring the head nurse's cryptic warnings. Michael speaks of elephants and opera -- with the occasional hint of murder and foul play. Fraught with mindgames and verbal tugs-of-war, The Elephant Song is a cat-and-mouse game that will keep you guessing until its haunting conclusion. M-2, F-1. Softcover, 56 pp. $16.95.


The Execution
Marie-Claire Blais
Set in a boarding school, The Execution is the story of two schoolboys who plot the murder of one of their classmates, and go on to enact the crime. As a play, it is a study of innocence, evil, and complicity. 103 pp. $16.95.

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The Satchmo Suite
Hans Boggild
A concert cellist unwittingly invokes the spirit of Louis Armstrong, who helps him discover things about his own identity as a musician as well as truths about the art and nature of music. Softcover, 79 pp. $17.95.

Reading Carol Bolt
Carol Bolt
One of the first "stars" of the Canadian theatre scene, Carol Bolt was a pioneer in the art of dramatic writing and created timeless, powerfull, and beautifully poetic works. This long overdue collection brings together some of her finest works including Cyclone Jack, Red Emma, Companeras, Icetime, and others. Softcover, 368 pp. $45.00.

One Night Stand (Una Aventura)
Carol Bolt
Daisy picks up a charming stranger who puncuates his lies with Latin songs. The consequences are chilling in this claustrophobic thriller. M-1, F-2. 62 pp. $12.00.

The Madonna Painter
Michel Marc Bouchard
At the end of the First World War, to protect his village from the Spanish flu epidemic brought home by returning soldiers, a young priest recently arrived in the Parish of Lac St-Jean commissions a wandering Italian painter to decorate the walls of the local church with a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The presence of the foreign artist, his choice of a local virgin to serve as a model, and the frighteningly strange nature of his work will upset this lives and change the fate of the entire community. m3, f4. Softcover, 94 pp. $16.95.

Written on Water
Michel Marc Bouchard
Torrential rains and an overflowing river have caused a mudslide in a small isolated village 'writing room' -- the room where a small group of senior citizens used to meet to record their memories. In Written on Water Bouchard has created an almost overwhelming commentary of the current world stage, using age and youth, and flood and restoration as his metaphors. M-3, F-3. Softcover, 95 pp. $15.95.

Orphan Muses
Michel Marc Bouchard
Four siblings gather with the idea of 'settling' family matters - some of which turn out to be not what they expected. Softcover, $12.95.

Coronation Voyage
Michel Marc Bouchard
May 1953. The Empress of France sets sail from Montreal. On the pretext of attending the celebrations marking the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, an important Mafioso leaves for England where he secretly plans to live in exile with his two sons. Aboard this floating palace in the middle of the ocean, the petty lord of the Montreal underworld must face the most important decision of his dubious career: will he sacrifice his youngest son for safe conduct? Softcover, $16.95.

Down Dangerous Passes Road
Michel Marc Bouchard
15 years to the day after the death of their father, three brothers get together and drive out to the place where it happened: an old fishing spot on the river down Dangerous Passes Road. Each is facing a crucial rite of passage. Carl, the youngest brother, is to be married later in the day, and it is this occasion that has brought the three of them together. Ambrose is losing his lover to AIDS. Victor, the eldest, has just left his 2nd failed marriage. An extraordinary play about the cost of love. Softcover, $15.95.

Heat Wave
Michel Marc Bouchard
A play about the lies that people tell in order to disguise their true selves and conceal their true emotions. Softcover, $12.95.

Lilies
Michel Marc Bouchard
This romantic drama tells the story of Simon Doucet, past lover of now-Catholic priest Jean Bilodeau. Simon retells the story of their love to Jean while in rehearsal for the medieval drama The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastien. M 9-12 69 pp. $13.95.

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Tale of Teeka
Michel Marc Bouchard
Bouchard's only children's play to date is the story of a friendship between a troubled boy and a goose, which ends tragically. A lyrical and challenging play for young audiences. Softcover, $15.95.

24 Exposures
Serge Boucher
"There is emptiness galore in this empty play. There are words full of emptiness in this play full of heartache. There is life and death: these small lives, these small deaths. And the ties that time has woven amoung them the members of this family, which keep them bound together. There is a family that I love." - Serge Boucher M-5, F-3. Softcover, 79 pp. $16.95.

The Fairies are Thirsty
Denise Boucher
In this play three women -- a housewife, a whore, and the Virgin Mary -- fight to break out of the stereotyped roles in which they have been imprisoned for centuries. A bold, passionate, poetic exploration on the role of women through all time. F-3. 63 pp. $15.95.

Motel Helene
Serge Boucher
Pursued and beset by two men - one a macho garage mechanic, the other a young homosexual - during the stifling atmosphere of a summer heatwave, Johanne struggles to make sense of herself as a woman. To make matters worse, she is also agonizing over the disappearance of her 6-year-old son, over two years earlier. M-2, F-1. 5.2 pp. $9.95.

Odd Fish
Pamela Boyd
20 years after fleeing the former Czechoslovakia, Jana has started a new life in Canada, living comfortably with her Canadian husband and two children, running a fishing marina. When a former lover unexpectedly returns to her life, her past and present collide and she is forced into a high-stakes game that will change her life forever. M-4, F-2. 94 pp. $12.95.

Wade in the Water
George Boyd
Follow Nelson Williams Johns, a man in search of his roots, on an uplifting journey that begins in Civil War-era Georgia and leads to Sierra Leone. Nelson is forced to choose between a perilous freedom and the safety of the known on his quest for increased personal and social consciousness. Filled with lyrical dialogue and nuanced characters, Wade in the Water is a poignant story that celebrates the beauty of the human spirit. Softcover, 51 pp. $14.95.

Gideon's Blues
George Boyd
With commanding language and unflinching honesty, Gideon's Blues offers entrance into the emotional dynamics of family and culture, by dealing with the powerful imperatives of love, fealty, devotion and justice. The profound humanity of Boyd's characters reminds us that neither drug abuse nor the breakdown of the traditional family is exclusive to the black community, but that because of racism, these problems have become more destructive to that community than they have to the dominant culture of North America. M4, W3. Softcover, 143 pp. $16.95.

Consecrated Ground
George Boyd
Consecrated Ground is a compelling drama based on the 1960's relocation of the residents of Africville, a black community built on the shores of Halifax's Bedford Basin. M-4, F-2. 69 pp. $12.95.

Two, By George!
George Elroy Boyd
Consecrated Ground is a compelling drama based on the 1960's relocation of the residents of Africville, a black community built on the shores of Halifax's Bedford Basin. M-4, F-2. Gideon's Blues combines high drama and hard reality in a powerful exposition of racism and drugs set in contemporary Halifax. M-4, F-3. 124 pp. $18.00.

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Morwyn Brebner

The Optimists
Morwyn Brebner
A weekend in Vegas. The chance for hopes and dreams to come true provides the backdrop for Morwyn Brebner's humorous look at love. It's the night before the chapel wedding and the promise of "happily ever after." Old friends confront their regrets, lies, betrayals and disappointments. Will hope be the elusive wild card?

Little Mercy's First Murder: A Musical
Morwyn Brebner
A hard-boiled 1940's Manhattan newspaperman, sent to photograph a crime scene, goes on the lam with the suspect in Morwyn Brebner's new hit play -- a film noir/social drama/musical comedy! Winner of seven Dora Mavor Moore Awards. M-4, F-2. Softcover, 70 pp. $12.95.

Music for Contortionist
Morwyn Brebner
In Morwyn Brebner's stunning playwriting debut, Valeska Gert -- 1930's cabaret star, avant-garde performance artist -- explains her life, love, and art from her own unique perspective. By turns hilarious and moving, Music for Contortionist is a wild ride. F-1., 1 contortionist 48 pp. $12.95.

Liquor Guns Karate
Morwyn Brebner
Laurel and Chuck, a Toronto couple in their late 20's, visit Los Angeles for the funeral of Laurel's estranged father. An untimely affair, a bizzare reunion, terrible weather: hijinks ensue. M-2, F-2. 63 pp. $12.95.

Magpie, Having and Hunger Striking: Three Plays
Kit Brennan
Three plays from award-winning playwright Kit Brennan which explore secrets, obsessions, and desire through the stories of three women, Bernice, the victim of small-town repression, Sarah, a former anorexia sufferer and young Erin, whose epileptic seizures leave her scared and vulnerable. 191 pp. $17.95.

Spring Planting
Kit Brennan
Two widowed neighbors -- one an 81-year-old man, the other a 40-year-old woman -- try to console themselves while coping with a generation gap, and their incorrigible relationships with their respective families. M-2, F-2. 93 pp. $14.95.

The Rap Canterbury Tales
Baba Brinkman
Rapper and MC Baba Brinkman brings his popular performance piece The Rap Canterbury Tales to the printed page, resurrecting Chaucer's brilliant stories from their vellum masoleum into visible and audible contemporary forms that will once again delight and edify both live audiences and readers. Softcover, 352 pp. $24.95.

For Home and Country
Leanna Brodie
This provocative, warm play spans the over 100 year history of the Stoney Creek Women's Insititute with deft and eager understanding of the generational conflict that arose between the urban and rural feminists. No 'city mouse, country mouse' play, but wonderfully witty and a creative, welcome addition to the Canadian canon of playwrighting. 13 W, 8 M, Chorus. Softcover, 126 pp. $16.95.

The Vic
Leanna Brodie
Steeped in ambiguity, this brilliant, envelope-pushing new play about the disturbing contemporary attitude that victim-hood confers entitlement, undermines and challenges conventional notions of victim, victory, and theatricality. F-8 126 pp. $16.95.



Schoolhouse
Leanna Brodie
Full of warmth and poignant humour, Schoolhouse evokes a way of life shared by generations of North Americans. It explores the themes of rejection, compassion, damage and hope. The play takes place in and around a one room rural schoolhouse in 1938. 10 W, 11 M. $15.95.

Daniel Brooks

The Noam Chomsky Lectures
Daniel Brooks
"Is it theatre?" -- Mira Friedlander, The Toronto Star "This is. . . meta-theatre." -- Robert Cushman, The Globe and Mail Co-authored with Guillermo Verdecchia, this dramatising of the ideas of Noam Chomsky makes for an intriging and thought-provoking theatrical experience. 93 pp. $15.95.

Insomnia
Daniel Brooks & Guillermo Verdecchia
Unfolding in a series of ever more surreal vignettes, Insomnia employs a powerful brand of non-linear, disorienting storytelling that skillfully focuses an audience's attention. $12.95.

Letters in Wartime
Kenneth Brown & Stephen Scriver
Can young love survive the lurking perils of World War II, especially when the closest thing to an embrace from your sweetheart in an occasional censored letter? Allan, a young RCAF pilot, and Moira, an auxilliary worker at Blatchford Field, Edmonton, try desperately to maintain their long-distance relationship, but is the printed word enough to keep love alive in a world turned upside down? This powerful enactment of a wartime adventure highlights the struggles, on both sides of the Atlantic, that test love's ability to conquer time, distance, war and even human nature. M-1, F-1. Softcover, 53 pp. $14.95.

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.

Monsieur d'Eon
Mark Brownell
This beguiling play tells the true-life tale of an 18th century aristocrat who transforms himself into a woman during the peak of his political career. M-7, F-3. 99 pp. $14.95.

 


Prodigals in a Promised Land
H. Jay Bunyan
M-2, F-4. 68 pp. $10.95.

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The Selkie Wife
Kellie Jo Burke
When Mary gets a surprise visit from her old friend Gen, we learn that Mary has a secret that could threaten her life with husband Cal and teenage daughter Brigit. No ordinary secret, this. As it turns out, Mary is a "selkie"--a seal who sheds her skin to mate with a human male, then returns to the water with her offspring. But Mary, happy with Cal, decided to stay on land. And now, twenty years later, Gen has come to take her back to the water. Softcover, 76 pp. $14.95.

Ronnie Burkett

String Quartet
Ronnie Burkett
4 plays by Ronnie Burkett: Tinka's New Dress, Street of Blood, Happy, and Provenance. Softcover, 266 pp. $29.95.

Billy Twinkle: Requiem for a Golden Boy
Ronnie Burkett
Billy Twinkle is a middle-aged cruise-ship puppeteer who dazzles audiences with his Stars in Minature marionette nightclub act. Billy is the best in the business and on top of the world as he floats along through life ... until he is fired by the cruise line. Standing at the edge of the ship, contemplating a watery demise, Billy is called back to reality when his dead mentor Sid Diamond appears as a handpuppet. Sid forces Billy to re-inact his life as puppet show, rekindling the passion Billy once had for puppets, people, and the dream of a life that sparkles. Softcover, 91 pp. $16.95.

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.

Provenance
Ronnie Burkett
Canadian art academic Pity Beane travels to Europe to trace the trail of the subject of her obsession, a painting of a young man known simply as "Tender". Now hidden in a Viennese brothel watched over by Leda Otenreath, a madam on the verge of madness, Pity finally sees the boy of her dreams. As Pity begins to unravel the provenance of the painting, she encounters prostitutes, a rollerskating monkey, a talking cow and glimpses of Leda's past. From the Paris art scene in the 1920s to glittering London salons, Leda's journey through the 20th century is one of constant re-invention, ever-changing and witnessed by the painting. Pity and Leda's encounter forces them to face their own brutal past, under the gaze of Tender's wartime horror. Each is released and transformed, and Pity returns home on her own beautiful journey. Softcover, 79 pp. $16.95.

The Memory Dress Trilogy
Ronnie Burkett
Master Puppeteer Ronnie Burkett is a genius at storytelling who creates dozens of characters in Tinka's New Dress, Happy and Street of Blood - all plays for puppets but about human stories. This is such a unique creation that it deserves to be read by all who enjoy imaginative storytelling. The volumes are filled with photos which help create the characters voices while you read.

Street of Blood
Ronnie Burkett
"Ronnie Burkett is one of the world's geniuses." -- The Village Voice. The second instalment of The Memory Dress Trilogy, this play was awarded a citation for excellence by UNIMA-USA Inc., the US branch of the Union Internationale de la Marionette. Softcover, 90 pp. OUT OF PRINT.

Tinka's New Dress
Ronnie Burkett
The first instalment of The Memory Dress Trilogy, this play garnered the Best International Production Award at the Dublin Theatre Festival, five Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards, two Dora Moore Awards and a Special Citation Obie for distinguished achievement in Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions. Audiences around the world have been captivated by Burkett's writing skills and marionetting virtuosity. Softcover, 98 pp. OUT OF PRINT.

Happy
Ronnie Burkett
The third and final instalment of The Memory Dress Trilogy, this play has won two Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards and at the time of publication has been nominated for awards in other cities where the production has been lauded Burkett's most stunning achievement. Burkett tackles themes of memory and loss, happiness and fate with warmth, wit and humanity. Softcover, 98 pp. OUT OF PRINT.

Beating the Bushes
Steven Bush
Steven Bush's one-man standup comedy, rant, political protest and call for the war-crimes trials of both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush is a brash theatrical tour de force that dares his audience to accompany him on personal quest for evidence of honesty, decency in a world of damning facts and murky conspiracy theories. Softcover, 157 pp. $18.95.
 

My Chernobyl
Aaron Bushkowsky
A naive Canadian man travels to Belarus to give an inheritance to his father's last remaining relative. While there, he meets his long-lost cousin, a beautiful, young Russian woman, who sets her sights on her wealthy relative as a ticket out of the radiation-blasted country. My Chernobyl is a quirky romance set in the existential old country, where cultures and ideals clash with touching and hilarious results. Softcover, 75 pp. $16.95.

The Waterhead and Other Plays
Aaron Bushkowsky
This collection of plays by Aaron Bushkowsky contains The Waterhead, The Big Blue Bird, and Between Mothers. Softcover, 79 pp. $17.95.

Strangers Among Us
Aaron Bushkowsky
Gabrielle and Michael meet by accident, fall in love, part, meet again and fall in love, part, meet again and fall in love all over again. Every time they meet, they forget each other's name because they suffer from Alzheimer's Disease. Eventually, they end up at a long-term care facility where they meet other people suffering from the same malady, extraordinary people who live and die with courage and hope. In the end, Michael and Gabrielle find love again and, in the process, change the lives of people around them.
97 pp. $13.95.

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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.