Billy Bishop Goes to War

by John Gray, with Eric Peterson

tagged: canadian

Description

Billy Bishop Goes to War ranks as one of Canada’s most successful and endearing musical dramas in history. The Governor General’s Award-winning musical documents the glorious World War I exploits of Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop.

About the Authors

John Gray

Eric Peterson

Eric Neal Peterson, stage, film and television actor is recognized as one of the early pioneers of the collective theatre movement in Canada during the 1970s. In 1976, he began working with John MacLachlan Gray, a playwright/director and fellow alumnus from Tamahnous Theatre, to create his most critically successful work, Billy Bishop Goes to War, a two-man show (Gray appeared as the narrator and pianist) in which he played more than a dozen characters. He is also recognized for his roles in three major Canadian series – Street Legal, Corner Gas and This is Wonderland.

Contributor Notes

John Gray
John Gray is the author of a novel, many magazine articles, and several stage musicals, a book on tattoos, Lost in North America: The Imaginary Canadian in the American Dream (1994), Local Boy Makes Good (1987) and the internationally acclaimed Billy Bishop Goes to War (1982) with Eric Peterson. He has contributed sixty-five satirical pieces for The Journal on CBC Television, and is a frequent speaker on cultural issues. Among his many awards are the Governor General’s Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award and the National Magazine Award.

Editorial Review

?Billy Bishop is a high-flying ace of a show, capturing the humour, the hellfire and the derring-do of an extraordinary career — The score is filled with vintage replicas of the kind of songs that sent men rushing in?and out?of battle. There are martial airs, barracksroom ditties, Kiplingesque tunes of glory, Gilbert and Sullivan-like patter songs and also a bitter brew of Brecht-Weill.”
? New York Times

?Billy Bishop Goes to War is a delightful?and cunningly wrought?work of art.”
? New Yorker

?A landmark of the Canadian theatre — John Gray’s success with Billy Bishop lies in the universality of the human individual?a universality that works precisely because Gray has kept the show on one-individual terms. He creates and deflates the hero myth in the same gesture.”
? Vancouver Sun

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