Drama

Brave New Play Rites
Edited by Bryan Wade

Brave New Play Rites presents twenty years of original and startling theatre from Canada's best young writers. The book is a collection of short one-act plays written by students in the Creative Writing Program at UBC and produced at the annual festival, Brave New Play Rites, for public performances. Many successful writers have had their plays produced in the festival, including Lynn Coady, Steven Galloway, Dennis Bolen, Kevin Chong, and Aaron Bushkowsky. The release of Brave New Play Rites coincides with the 20th anniversary year of the festival, and the familiar names in this collection will be of interest both critically and to readers who already follow the careers of these writers.

Drama
320 pp, 5.25 x 8.25
ISBN: 1-895636-75-2
$25 CAN / $20 US

True Mummy
By Tom Cone

True Mummy is a compelling drama which presents provocative ideas and poses difficult questions connected to issues of life and death, morality and art, ritual versus utilitarianism, and the "opposing concepts of creation and desecration".

True Mummy refers to a black, luminous, clear glaze, the "best shellac in the history of art", that was made from the ash of cremated mummies.

What is sacred today—anything? Is any degree of desecration justified in the pursuit of truth and the creation of art? These are only a few of the questions posed in this provocative drama.

"Cone's plays present a remarkable talent for layering history, visual art, philosophy and contemporary social issues"
—The Rain Review of Books

"True Mummy breaks new ground in its use of the theatrical form to explore ideas and ask unanswerable questions"
—Vancouver Sun

"It's rare to see a play as challenging as True Mummy. Its risks and successes are laudable"
—Georgia Straight

Drama
92 pp, 5.75 x 8.75
ISBN: 1-895636-52-3
$14 CAN / $10 USA

Shylock
By Mark Leiren-Young
2nd Edition

Shylock is an award-winning play about a Jewish actor who finds himself condemned by his own community for his portrayal of Shakespeare's notorious Jew.

"Not an ounce of fat on this play. Pure gold."
—CBC Radio

"Shylock is an amazing play...it touches so many important issues in our society about stereotypes and artistic integrity that are especially resonant for non-profit theaters. It's also exraordinarily funny."
—Bernard Havard, Artistic Director,
Walnut Street Theater

"Mark Leiren-Young’s play is very strong and an important contribution to the vexed and vexing question of the alleged anti-Semitism of The Merchant of Venice." — Patrick Stewart, actor

Drama
New Format Reprint
84 pp, 5 x 8
ISBN: 1-895636-12-4
$11.95 CAN / $8.95 USA

Articles of Faith:
The Battle of St. Alban's
By Mark Leiren-Young

Articles of Faith is a play designed to promote understanding of the controversial subject of the blessing of same-sex unions. The play is based on a series of interviews conducted by the author in a Pacific Northwest community where the issue of formal condoning and blessing of same-sex unions divided and eventually split an Anglican parish.

"Articles tackles an issue that had bedevilled Christian denominations for years." —Maclean's Magazine

Drama
56pp, 5 x 8
ISBN: 1-895636-41-8
$10 CAN / $7 US

Red Mango
By Charles Tidler

Red Mango is a one-man play about a "single celibate sensualist" who constantly thinks about women—though not for sex, but for sweaty joy and sensual contact on the booming dance floors of Victoria's blues clubs. Charlie is a mid-40's, divorced blues fanatic; he is "between relationships" and addicted to the rapture of losing one's self in a crowded room of sweating, gyrating, heaving bodies, grinding to the rhythms of powerhouse blues. Humorous, poetic, Red Mango played to sold-out houses at Victoria's Belfry Theatre.

"Tidler's darkly comic monologue about a lonely guy's sub-Kerouacian, picaresque adventures literally roars to life." — Times Colonist

Drama
64 pp, 5 1/2 x 7
ISBN: 1-895636-38-8
$11.95 CAN / $8.95 US

The Sound of Whales
By David Charles MacLean

"The Sound of Whales is a lyric-comedy about language, our obsessive reliance upon it, and how linear thought can inhibit understanding. David MacLean’s play has its roots in his personal experience in dealing with governmental, educational, and medical bureaucracies. The frustration the playwright expresses toward these institutions is balanced by the love and devotion a father feels for his son. The Sound of Whales is at once tender and angry, intimate and universal."
— Robert Garfat, from "A Director’s Analysis."

". . . ambitious, poetic and imaginative, with moments of striking honesty . . ."
—The Vancouver Sun

"The Sound of Whales draws picture after picture in its attempt to communicate the ineffable."
—The Georgia Straight

Drama
64 pp, 5 x 8
ISBN: 1-895636-10-8
$9.95 CAN / $7.95 US

Fragments from the Big Piece
By Brian Kaufman

Fragments from the Big Piece is a non-linear, stylized play inspired by “eastern bloc” film noir. While exploring the dark underbelly of the drug trade, the play simultaneously tells the story of a man and a woman’s crumbling relationship.

"A teasing game of metaphysical join-the-dots in a style that recalls Kafka, George F. Walker, David Mamet, and the movie Brazil." — Books in Canada

"If novelist Thomas Pynchon wrote for the theatre, he might write something like this. It’s complex, confusing and fascinating. . ." — Laura Busheikin

Drama
43 pp, 4 3/4 x 7 3/4
ISBN: 1-895636-02-7
$6.95 CAN / $5.95 US

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