Book picks similar to
Blood: A Scientific Romance by Meg Braem


plays
canadian
interesting-narrators
fiction

Someday


Drew Hayden Taylor - 1993
    The story in Someday, though told through fictional characters and full of Taylor's distinctive wit and humour, is based on the real-life tragedies suffered by many Native Canadian families.Anne Wabung's daughter was taken away by children's aid workers when the girl was only a toddler. It is Christmastime 35 years later, and Anne's yearning to see her now-grown daughter is stronger than ever.When the family is finally reunited, however, the dreams of neither women are fulfilled.The setting for the play is a fictional Ojibway community, but could be any reserve in Canada, where thousands of Native children were removed from their families in what is known among Native people as the "scoop-up" of the 1950s and 1960s. Somedayis an entertaining, humourous, and spirited play that packs an intense emotional wallop.Reviews: "One of the 50 Essential Canadian Plays"-- Toronto Star

Belle Moral: A Natural History


Ann-Marie MacDonald - 2005
    Set in Scotland in 1899, this dark and redemptive gothic comedy is a story of family secrets that have come to life and of the birth and evolution of ideas – and truly a play of morals. Reaching out in two directions to reconcile the extremes of rationalism and romanticism, Belle Moral embraces a complex range of turn-of-the-century thought including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, contemporary medical beliefs and the concept of eugenics.

The Long And The Short And The Tall


Willis Hall - 1959
    Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. Set in the Malayan jungle in 1942, this play explores what happens when soldiers have to confront the reality of war.

Dances with Wolves


John Barry - 1991
    Comes complete with a color photo section of scenes from the movie and a bio of the renowned film score composer John Barry.

Poor Super Man: A Play With Captions


Brad Fraser - 1995
    "An unflaggingly witty and often moving slice of life . . . Poor Super Man explodes on to the stage like a bold comic strip, complete with snappy captions and hard, bright, witty dialogue," writes the Edmonton Journal.

Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight: A Comedy in Three Beds


Peter Ackerman - 2000
    Ever been racially slurred in the sack? Ever been subjected to strangers yelling at you at 3am about the most intimate details of your life? Ever been to New York? Six characters from wildly different backgrounds make love, war and hysteria late one night in the cultural, sexual and generational smorgasbord that is Manhattan.

Hag-Seed


Margaret Atwood - 2016
    Reduced to a life of exile in rural southern Ontario—accompanied only by his fantasy daughter, Miranda, who died twelve years ago—Felix devises a plan for retribution.Eventually he takes a job teaching Literacy Through Theatre to the prisoners at the nearby Burgess Correctional Institution, and is making a modest success of it when an auspicious star places his enemies within his reach. With the help of their own interpretations, digital effects, and the talents of a professional actress and choreographer, the Burgess Correctional Players prepare to video their Tempest. Not surprisingly, they view Caliban as the character with whom they have the most in common. However, Felix has another twist in mind, and his enemies are about to find themselves taking part in an interactive and illusion-ridden version of The Tempest that will change their lives forever. But how will Felix deal with his invisible Miranda’s decision to take a part in the play?

The Lottery: A play in one act


Brainerd Duffield - 1983
    

The Rain Ascends


Joy Kogawa - 1995
    Originally published to critical acclaim in 1995, The Rain Ascends has been revisited by the author, with substantive additions to the end of the narrative that bring to fruition the heroine's struggle for forgiveness and redemption.As a middle-aged mother, Millicent is confronted with the secrets of her father's past as she recalls certain events in her childhood-a childhood that, on the surface, was a blissful one. Disbelief turns to confusion as she faces up to the sins of her father and wrestles with a legacy of lies, silence and her own embattled conscience.In The Rain Ascends, Joy Kogawa beautifully sifts the truth from the past and the sinner from the perceived saint. The result is a sensitive, poetic, yet searing depiction of the wounds left by abuse and the redemption brought by truth.

Girls Like That


Evan Placey - 2013
    But while rumors run wild and everyone forms an opinion, Scarlett just stays silent.With roles for up to twenty-four young female actors (though it can also be performed by a smaller cast), the play is perfect for any schools, youth theatres or drama groups looking to tackle a contemporary subject in a theatrically exciting way.Specially commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, Girls Like That was developed through work with young people from the three theatres and first performed by their youth theatre companies in 2013."[Tackles] strong, relevant issues... a well-written, immaculately crafted and brave piece of energetic theatre." - A Younger Theatre"An urgent, powerful and haunting examination... I can see this play becoming a very popular resource for 16+ groups and that will be no bad thing." National Drama MagazineEvan Placey is a Canadian-British playwright. His other work includes Mother of Him, Holloway Jones, which won the Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People, and Pronoun, commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival.

Blue Remembered Hills


Dennis Potter - 1971
    In a woods, a field and a barn, they play, fight, fantasize and swagger. Their aggressions, fears, hostilities and rivalries are a microcosm of adult interaction. Easy going Willie tags along as burly Peter bullies Raymond and is challenged by fair minded Paul. Plain Audrey is overshadowed by Angela's prettiness and wreaks her anger on the boys. All of them gang up on the terrified "Donald Duck" who, abused by his mother and ridiculed by his peers, plays a dangerous game of pyromania with tragic results.

The Who The What: A Play


Ayad Akhtar - 2014
    Zarina has a bone to pick with the place of women in her Muslim faith, and she's been writing a book about the Prophet Muhammad that aims to set the record straight. When her traditional father and sister discover the manuscript, it threatens to tear her family apart. With humor and ferocity, Akhtar's incisive new drama about love, art, and religion examines the chasm between our traditions and our contemporary lives.

Shoot Me


Lesley Crewe - 2010
    She mothers everyoneher social work clients, her husband, her twenty-something daughters, and her reclusive sister who lives in the attic. Elsie is committed to taking care of everyone--everyone but herself. So, when crazy Aunt Hildy writes to demand a bedroom in their Halifax home, Elsie cant help but say yes. When Hilda arrives, she enchants and enrages the family with her moxie. That and her proclamation that she has hidden treasure in the house and the kings ransom will go to whoever loved her most. When someone threatens Aunt Hildy, she responds with her trademark sass: Go ahead. Shoot me. I dare you. Whoever it is takes her up on it. Suddenly, the house is turned topsy-turvy as Elsies family searches for a treasure that Elsie doesnt believe even exists, and for a killer that could be any one of them. Shoot Me is a funny and sometimes heart-wrenching story about family, fortune, and figuring out who you are and who you love. In Elsie, Crewe has created a character who speaks with humour and honesty to conflicts that exist in the lives of so many women: between work and home, between loving one man and wanting others, and between feeling fulfilled not only as a wife and a mother, but as a woman.

An Experiment with an Air Pump


Shelagh Stephenson - 1998
    1999 - In a world of scientific chaos, cloning and genetic engineering, the cellar of the same house reveals a dark secret buried for 200 years.

One for the Rock


Kevin Major - 2018
    But when he leads a group of tourists along the cliffs of St. John's harbour, one of them ends up dead. Not only is there a murderer in his tour group, but the cop assigned to the case is sleeping with Sebastian's ex-wife. It seems like things can't get any worse, but as he's enlisted to help flush out the perpetrator, the trail leads deeper than expected, and Sebastian finds himself on the edge.