Canadian Plays by Playwright: G

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

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.

Angelique
Lorena Gale
A rich poetic evocation of a graceful yet cruel time -- a time when "civilised" citizens still bought and sold slaves. This is a time when the thoughts and feelings of these captive people had no bearing on the outcome of their lives, unless they were outraged and brave enough to try and shake their bounds. M-4, F-3. 76 pp. $15.95.

Je me souviens
Lorena Gale
In this powerful dramatic monologue, Lorena Gale remembers, by reconstructing for the audience, her childhood and coming of age as an African-Canadian in Montreal. 90 pp. $15.95.

In Piazza San Domenico
Steve Gallucio
A farcical comedy of errors set in 1952 Naples in which one couple's broken engagement ripples through friends and family, affecting all of their respective lives in different ways. 4M 4F. Softcover, 126 pp. $17.95.



Mambo Italiano
John Galluccio
Mambo Italiano is about the dynamics of family, the vast spaces between the old world and the new, and grasping the resonant codes embedded in what is said and what is meant in ordinary speech. This play is fresh and funny as it deals with the difficulties that gay lovers face in their relationship.M3, W4. Softcover, 126 pp. $16.95.

House of Many Tongues
Jonathan Garfinkel
Two families, one Israeli, one Palestinian, lay claim to the same house and are forced to live together in this absurdist, surreal take on mid-east politics. 4M 3F. Softcover, 91 pp. $16.95.

The Trials of John Demjanuk
A Holocaust Cabaret
Jonathan Garfinkel
In 1987, Clevand auto worker John Demjanjuk was accused of being Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka and brought to trial in Jerusalem for crimes against humanity. In 1988 he was sentenced to hang, but in 1993, aquitted. In 2002 his American citizenship was revoked -- for the second time. Was he guilty? And of what exactly? This play probes the nature of guilt and the need for retribution as the circus of the public ritual transforms the courtroom into cabaret, lawyers into Nazis, and survivors into singing emcees. M-1, F-1. Softcover, 79 pp. $16.95.

Warriors
Michel Garneau
Two ad men lock themselves in a room to work on a new slogan for the Canadian Armed Forces. The tension of creation is brilliantly and dangerously portrayed as they consider the morality of the war machine. M-2 102 pp. $15.95.

 

Lost: A Memoir
Cathy Ostlere & Dennis Garnhum
An unforgettable show based on an inspiring true story. Cathy leaves her home in Calgary to search for her lost brother. As she tries to unravel the mystery of his life, she discovers some surprising things about her own life's journey. 1F. Softcover, 62 pp. $14.95.

Cold Comfort
Jim Garrard
Set in Saskatchewan, this play has three characters: Dolores, a 15.-year-old girl who wants to know more about the world; her father Floyd, with whom she lives in an abandoned service station; and Stephen, the proverbial travelling salesman who enters their lives and unwittingly becomes implicated in their complex and complicated relationship. M-2, F-1. 94 pp. $15.95.

Bye Bye Baby
Elyse Gasco
Bye Bye Baby is a dramatic comedy inspired by Elyse Gasco's multi-award-winning book Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?, and marks her debut as a playwright. The play follows Elle on her journey to discover the truth about her birth mother as she struggles to make sense of her own life and identity. It is a quest for truth, redemption and forgiveness, that shifts seamlessly between a mysterious past and an uncertain future. F-5. Softcover, 80 pp. $14.95.

Crossing and Other Plays
C.E. Gatchalian
Contains the plays Crossing, Diamond, and Ticks. Softcover, 106 pp. $17.95.

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.

Otherwise Bob
Connie Gault
Otherwise Bob delves into the mind of Jennifer, a woman yearning to escape the banality of her married middle-class existence. When the otherworldly Bob appears on the scene, the door to fantastic change blows wide open. Connie Gault has conjured a psychologically rich and enchantingly funny play with an original spin on the path we all travel but travel alone. 71 pp. $12.95.

Red Lips
Connie Gault
After a vacation abroad with friends, a middle-aged woman is tempted by ancient gold beads, crones, a mysterious child, and a ruby ring. When a charming scoundrel offers to take her on a mysterious journey, she has to decide what she is willing to risk to live her life. M-4, F-1.1 79 pp. $12.95.

Sky
Connie Gault
A 16-year-old girl is impregnated by her father then married off. She tells he naive young husband that she's carrying God's child, and he believes her. M-1, F-3. 79 pp. $10.95.

The Soft Eclipse
Connie Gault
A poignant evocation of a small Saskatchewan town in the 60's, it follows six women, aged 16 to 76, through a day both strangely unique and satisfyingly "everyday" as they anticipate the coming eclipse of the sun. M-1, F-6 78 pp. $10.95.

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The Passion of Narcisse Mondoux
Gratien Gelinas
Narcisse Mondoux sets out to woo the recently widowed Laurencienne Robichaud. When at last he thinks he has learned the secret to her heart, he discovers that Laurencienne is a liberated woman who intends to fulfill her secret ambition by herself. M-1, F-1. 85 pp. $12.95.

Yesterday the Children Were Dancing
Gratien Gelinas
Lawyer Pierre Gravel is offered the federal justice portfolio but is unexpectedly faced with the opposing views and violent methods of his son Andre, a terrorist leader in Montreal. The play deals powerfully with the issues of federalism in Quebec, but just as powerfully with the complexity of emotions underlying the unrest. 76 pp. $12.95.

Belle
Florence Gibson
The extraordinary story of two recently freed slaves, husband and wife, journeying to the north in search of new life. When they encounter a white woman fighting for the suffrage movement, they become entwined in the social upheaval that epitomizes post Civil War America. M-4, F-4. Softcover, 87 pp. $13.95. An interview with Florence Gibson.


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.

Rope Enough
Sky Gilbert
Ichabod and Dylan are two young effeminate gay party boys whose sybaritic existence is abruptly interrupted when they are both charged with the murder of Ichabod's parents. Are they evil cold-blooded killers, turned on by a perverse cocktail of death and orgasms, or are they simply misunderstood by a homophobic culture? Decide for yourself in this psychological murder mystery. Softcover, 51 pp. $16.95.

The Emotionalists
Sky Gilbert
Sky Gilbert reveals the contradictions of Ayn Rand's towering intellect, in this intelligent, witty, and disturbing examination of the limits of reason and the need for honest emotion -- especially in the realm of love. M-4, F-2. 63 pp. $14.95.

Avoidance Tactics
Sky Gilbert
Three plays by Sky Gilbert. Includes: Schubert Lied; Independence; The Birth of Casper G. Schmidt. 111 pp. $18.95.

Drag Queens on Trial
Sky Gilbert
On the witness stand the Drag Queens reveal fantastic romantic lives; in their dressing room they are cruelly oppressed by straight culture. Which is real? M-3 85 pp. $17.95.

Sam Slick Goes Ahead
Andrew Gillis
The year is 1835. Thomas Poker has been sent to Nova Scotia by Britain's Ministry of the Interior to investigate possible covert American activity in the province. On hearing stories of a certain Yankee peddler -- a clockmaker named Samuel Slick -- Poker contrives to meet him and posing as "The Squire", convinces Slick to take him on a tour of the province. M-3, F-1. 89 pp. $9.95.

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.

Trying
Joanna McClelland Glass
"An affecting and very human bio-drama... a compelling look at age and class differences, as well as how two generations come to understand one another. Most attractive is the witty dialogue, stuffed with acerbic barbs and smart samplings of politics, history, and literature."
-- Winnipeg Free Press
M-1, F-1. $16.95.

If We Are Women
Joanna McClelland Glass
Two grandmothers, a daughter, and a granddaughter gather on the deck of a beach house. The three older women discuss their pasts, their present, and they are confounded with the granddaughter's decision to disregard all that she's heard. F-4. 102 pp. $10.99.

Play Memory
Joanna McClelland Glass
An examination of the decline and fall of Cam MacMillan, a prairie salesman who considers himself a Canadian aristocrat. When he is chosen as the scapegoat during a WWII gas-station scandal, he is unable to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. We watch the effects of his alcoholism on his wife and daughter, and journey with them on their voyage toward survival. M-6, F-3. 69 pp. $14.95.

Canadian Gothic and American Modern
Johanna M. Glass
American Modern: A highly imaginative, freeform evocation of the numbing isolation which besets a couple as a struggle to the terrors of urban life. M-1, F-1. Canadian Gothic: Presented on a virtually bare stage, with the characters speaking sometimes to the audience and sometimes to each other, the play uses language of poetic eloquence to and incision to illuminate its tale of an ill-fated love affair and the family it destroys. M-2, F-2. 50 pp. $10.99

Artichoke
Joanna M. Glass
Margaret, Walter and Margaret's old dad live on a Saskatchewan farm. A water-witch leaves a baby, Lily Agnes, on their porch, with a note saying the baby is Walter's. Walter has been banished to celibacy in the smokehouse when Gibson, an international authority on Alexander Pope, arrives on the scene and woos Margaret. M-5., F-2. 61 pp. $10.99.

To Grandmother's House We Go
Joanna McClelland Glass
Three generations of family gather at Grandie's house in Connecticut. The tradition of the young taking care of the old is reversed as the marital anarchy of the younger generation (30's) its angst and requests at the old lady's feet. M-2, F-6 93 pp. $11.99.

Yesteryear
Joanna McClelland Glass
Brimming with the romantic optimism of the post-war era, this sunny comedy brings the hopeful message that love can be lovelier the second time around. Be part of the fun when an Irish Sweepstakes ticket exalts the meek above the mighty in a close-knit prairie town. Yesteryear is the perfect entertainment for open-hearted, open-minded, joy-loving people. M-7, F-3. 103 pp. $13.95.

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Adam Baum and the Jew Movie
Daniel Goldfarb
Hollywood, 1946. Jewish movie mogul Sam Baum has just hired Gentile screenwriter Garfield Hampson Jr. to script a film about anti-Semitism. Through a series of intense and engaging meetings about the screenplay, both men are challenged to redefine their ideas about racism and about art. M-3 94 pp. $14.95.

Margaret in Search of Herself and other plays
Janice Goveas
Contains Margaret in Search of Herself, Philomena Across Time and Dinner with Akbar. Softcover, 147 pp. $19.95.

Bea's Niece
David Gow
Ann Hirsh, a famous novelist, battles to regain her sense of place, time, and reality. She is surrounded by characters and happenings which challenge our understanding and perception. M-1, F-3. 93 pp. $14.95.

 


Cherry Docs
David Gow
A neo-Nazi skinhead has been charged with murder and legal aid has assigned him to a Jewish lawyer. Over the course of developing a defense for the skinhead, the lawyer is forced to examine the limits of his own liberalism and the demons underlying it. M-2 87 pp. $14.95.


The Hungry Spirit: Selected Plays & Prose
Elsie Park Gowan
Though she wrote over 200 dramatic pieces -- most of which were produced professionally and broadcasted nationally and internationally on the CBC -- this anthology marks the first comprehensive publication of her work. 328 pp. $14.95.

Margaret in Search of Herself and other plays
Janice Goveas
Contains Margaret in Search of Herself, Philomena Across Time and Dinner with Akbar. Softcover, 147 pp. $19.95.

Staging the North
Sherrill Grace, Ed.
The problematic term "the North" and our complex national identity is explored and illuminated in these 12 Canadian plays.
502 pp. $39.95.

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.


Sir John, Eh?
Jim Garrard Grant
87 pp. $14.95.

What Glorious Times They Had -- Nellie McClung
Diane Grant
What Glorius Times They Had -- Nellie McClung traces the efforts of the suffragists to win the vote in pre-World War I Manitoba. The play combines the themes of politics, prohibition and suffrage, but treats them with liberal amounts of humour, music and vitality. M-2, F-4. 80 pp. $7.99

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The Hand That Cradles the Rock
Warren Graves
Alexandra is in demand as an interior designer so her husband, Ross, agrees to stay home and raise the baby. An erratic washing machine, baby formula and an increasingly-attentive local nurse bring on housewife syndrome and make him fear for his masculinity. M-2, F-3. 71 pp. $11.99.

The Mumberley Inheritance
Warren Graves
Pale Daphne is nursing her father and trying to get Rodney Stoutheart to the altar, meanwhile awaiting the return of her brother Jack from "the Canadas." Enter Marmaduke Mayhem, archvillian. M-5., F-3. 5.8 pp. $11.99.

Scrooge
Warren Graves
The full magic of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is captured by a small cast on one set. M-5., F-2. 47 pp. $11.95.

The Last Real Summer
Warren Graves
In this memory play, the older Lizzie -- now Dr. Elizabeth Wharton -- reflects on her youth and the choices that led her to her current unrest. M-3, F-5. 67 pp. $10.95.

Billy Bishop Goes To War
John Gray
The truth about war. A high-flying ace of a show celbrating the derring-do of Canada's greatest pilot hero. Billy is an anti-hero and the Bishop myth is inflated and deflated in the same gesture. M-1, 1 pianist 102 pp. $16.95.

Local Boy Makes Good: Three Musicals by John Gray
John Gray
Features the musicals: 18 Wheels, Rock and Roll, and Don Messer's Jubilee. 206 pp. $24.95.

Age of Arousal
Linda Griffiths
It’s 1885 in Age of Arousal, and in London there are half a million more women than men. Mary, an ex-suffragette, has opened a secretarial school for women to teach liberation through typing. When three sisters sign up, unexpected passions and secret desires are unleashed as they each learn what being a New Woman can truly mean. 5 F; 1 M. Softcover, $17.95.

Chronic
Linda Griffiths
At first Petra seems familiarly neurotic, a Woody Allen character refracted through George F. Walker. But as Linda Griffiths examines the psychological, social and sexual dimensions of Petra's experience in her desperate pursuit of a cure, as well as her medical treatments, her strange dreams, and the peculiarities of her post-industrial workplace, the stage becomes an environmental petrie dish, a fascinating experiment in the ecology of illness. M-3, F-3. $15.95.

Alien Creature: A Visitation from Gwendolyn MacEwen
Linda Griffiths
Alien Creature delves into the tortured soul of Gwendolyn MacEwen, one of Canada's leading poets. She died suddenly in 1987 at the age of forty six. In Griffith's play, MacEwen returns to the modern world one night, bringing images and a prophetic warning abbout the death of poetry and imagination.$12.95.

Sheer Nerve
Linda Griffiths
The complete collection of Griffith's works, including: Maggie & Pierre, O.D. on Paradise, The Darling Family, Brother Andre's Heart, Jessica, A Game of Inches, The Duchess. $29.95.

Book of Jessica
Linda Griffiths
A halfbreed woman embarks on a spiritual journey. Her past is played out within a ceremony by Bear, Coyote, Wolverine, and Unicorn. M-3, F-3. 175 pp. $18.95.

The Darling Family
Linda Griffiths
As they face the dilemma of an unplanned pregnancy, this couple's decision to search beyond their trivial self-definitions, to face every thought, every option, becomes a path to healing, courage and growth. M-1, F-1. 62 pp. $12.95.
 

The Duchess a.k.a. Wallis Simpson
Linda Griffiths
An extravagant and inspired epic, The Duchess: a.k.a. Wallis Simpson takes us into a kaleidoscopic wonderland, where Kings and Queens dance the Black Bottom, Faerie creatures demand blood, and Empires are given up for love. This multi-layered script finds a place between straight-forward narrative and magic realism. M-4, F-3. 110 pp. $14.95.

Lutz
Ryan Griffith
After a tremendous upset at the Olympics a figure skater decides it's time to go home to his family in the backwoods of New Brunswick. He soon discovers that his old home delivers more pain than healing, and he finds himself struggling to separate memory from reality. 4M 2F. Softcover, 120 pp. $16.95.
 

Wawatay
Penny Gummerson
When mother and family peacemaker, Lois LaFontaine is unexpectedly hospitalised, her husband and four children are forced to come together and confront their family demons. The black sheep of the family, Jaz disrupts the family balance by challenging it. She has embraced her Native heritage and as her mother lies in a coma and the Northern Lights dance, she encourages her unwilling family to face the truth of their ancestry. A touching and hopeful story, Wawatay reassures us that there is life after family politics have been dealt with and skeletons in the closet rattled. M-2, F-4. Softcover, 104 pp. $16.95.

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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.