Taking as her alter-ego Lily Briscoe–the painter in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse–Mary Meigs paints a portrait of herself, her family and her friends in Lily Briscoe: A Self-Portrait, a book that is both autobiography and memoir. In it, she describes the three major decisions of her life: "not to marry, to be an artist" and to listen to he …

It is the glorious second day of May, 1942. The sun is drawing the damp from earth still heavy with the end of a long Quebec winter, the budding branches of the trees along rue Fabre and in Parc Lafontaine of the Plateau Mont Royal ache to release their leaves into the warm, clear air heralding the approach of summer.

Seven women in this raucous Fra …

Balconville is Canada's first bilingual play. Three families and Thibault, the neighbourhood rubbie, sit on their balconies in the heat of a Montreal summer. It is election time and Gaétan Bolduc is running for re-election for the Liberals. His broadcast truck roams the streets making election promises in English and in French, and playing the mus …

Waiting for the Parade is John Murrell’s play, set in Calgary during World War II, in which five women gather to work for the war effort while their men are away. Waiting for the Parade was first performed by Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary. Subsequently, it has been performed by Northern Light Theatre, Edmonton; Bastion Theatre, Victoria; Tarr …

The Great Wave of Civilization is Herschel Hardin’s play about the destruction of the people of the Blackfoot Confederacy by the liquor trade in Montana and Alberta in the 19th century. Little Dog of the Northern Blackfoot tribe vs. Snookum Jim, free trader, I.G. Baker, merchant-prince of Fort Benton and the rest of the “great wave of civilizat …

En Pièces Détachées is Michel Tremblay’s look at “The Main” in Montreal. The play concerns Hélène, a waitress who used to work in a bar called the Coconut Inn, but who now works slinging smoked meat in a joint on Papineau Street. She is married to Henri, who sits around all day watching Captain Cartoons on television. They live in a ten …

Jane Rule’s first collection of short stories, some of which were first published in The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the United States. Jane Rule is also the author of Desert of the Heart and Memory Board.

In the sensual and tender “Middle Children,” two closeted young lesbians radiate the joy of their love …

“There I was just out of high school, all eager for the future, and there was the road to the future stretching out in front of me like fifteen miles of broken glass.”
Set in Winnipeg in August, 1945, Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass is Tom Hendry’s look at post-World War II Canada from a recent high-school graduate’s viewpoint. The play was co …

Jacob's Wake explores the relationship of a father, Winston, with his three sons, Wayne, a corrupt politician, Alonzo, a cynical business man, and Brad, a failed priest. It quickly moves from an apparently realistic family drama to nightmarish, expressionistic drama of 20th century failure as an approaching storm begins to dominate the stage. Once …

Esker Mike & His Wife, Agiluk is a social satire about Eskimo life in the Mackenzie River Delta and how it is affected by white settlers, priests and government officials. The play is also a tragic reflection on the role of women who are forced to bear children in a society that cannot afford to support them.

Crabdance is a tragicomedy in three acts in which a lonely, middle-aged woman plays elaborate, ritualistic games with three men whom she forces to play the roles of her son, her husband and her lover.

Rita Joe is a Native girl who leaves the reservation for the city, only to die on skid row as a victim of white men’s violence and paternalistic attitudes towards First Nations peoples. As perhaps the best-known contemporary Canadian play and a poetic drama of enormous theatrical power, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe had a major influence in awakening c …