The Playwrights Database
JOAN MACLEOD
Nationality: Canadian
email: n/a Website: n/a
Literary Agent: Gary Goddard Agency Ltd represented by Pam Winter
Multiple Betty Mitchell, Chalmer's, Dora and Governor General's Award-winning author Joan MacLeod grew up in North Vancouver and studied Creative Writing at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia. Now an internationally celebrated star of the world of the Theatre, MacLeod developed her finely honed playwriting skills during seven seasons as playwright-in-residence at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, and turned her hand to opera with her libretto for the Secret Garden, which won a Dora Award. She has had many radio dramas produced by CBC Stereo Theatre, including Hand of God, a one-hour drama adapted from her play Jewel, and has written numerous scripts for film and television productions. Translated into eight languages, her work has been extensively produced around the world. Multiple simultaneous productions of her hit play the Shape of a Girl toured internationally for four years, including a sold-out run in New York. Her play Amigo's Blue Guitar won the 1991 Governor General's Drama Award. Her Governor General's Award nominations include one in 1996 for the Hope Slide / Little Sister and one in 2009 for Another Home Invasion. MacLeod also writes prose and poetry, which has been published in a wide variety of literary journals.
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below is a list of Joan MacLeod's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
2000 Amigo's Blue Guitar Another Home Invasion Homechild Hope Slide , The Jewel Little Sister Shape Of A Girl , The Toronto, Mississippi U.I.C.2000
In the play, the cougar appears to embody the precarious and increasingly circumscribed state of nature. each character relates to nature in a different way, whether it be with distrust, cynicism, awe or longing. the figure of the "Mountain Man," who has abandoned all of his civilized ways, even speech, to live among the animals of the forest, provides a meeting ground between humanity and nature. Like the cougar, increasingly crowded by a rapidly encroaching civilization, he scavenges what preciously little remains of the beautiful animal in all of us.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Great Canadian Theatre Company, Ottawa. 1996
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 1997 978-0889223738
Music:
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageAmigo's Blue Guitar
a college student's life is given meaning when he chooses to sponsor elias, a Salvadoran refugee, as a class project. When elias arrives, his hosts Sander and his family, learn what it means and feels like to be a refugee and how to relate to someone who has endured such intense personal grief. the warmth and humour of the characters invite us to embrace the situation, be moved by it, threatened by it, and to consider how we would react
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1st Produced:
Tarragon Theatre, Toronto 02 Jan 1990
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Summerhill Press, Toronto (1990)
Talonbooks (1997) >>> 978-0889223714
Talonbooks (1997) >>> 978-0889223714
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
-
Top of PageAnother Home Invasion
We, each of us in the civilized Western world, live in a space inviolate. Our home is our castle, as the saying goes: our shelter from the intrusion of the weather and other outside influences; our defense against physical and mental threats, real and imagined, to our private space; vault to our accumulated private property; theatre of our desires and aspirations; arena of our private victories and defeats, no matter how large or small; harbour of our secrets and fears; refuge to our children and family. Yet the very protection and security our home provides us with also isolates us from our neighbours, our relatives, and the public affairs of our communities - constructs a garrison of anonymity around us and our loved ones in which we can become unknown, unloved - no one that anyone need be concerned nor care about. We see the recent rise of home invasions in our society as a violation of our most intimate places: the perpetration of heinous crimes upon the aged, the disabled, the helpless, victimizing our citizens precisely where rules of hospitality and generosity should govern our social relations. All this and more is the subject of Joan MacLeod's perceptively poignant play, Another Home Invasion, where another carries both its meanings: something commonplace; and something of an entirely different kind and nature. Of course this play involves the hapless, substance-abusing, middle-aged petty criminal we expect to find there, but is he the real threat to the home's occupants? He even shows up for a return visit. Who, then, are the real perpetrators of the heartless betrayal of the elderly couple who lives here: who is it that's robbing them of their possessions, their security, their relationship, their family - their home? the answers to these questions are as surprising as they are unsettling.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
enbridge Playrites Festival, Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary 2009
Organisations:
Tarragon Theatre, Toronto
1st Published:
Talonbooks (2009) >>> 978-0889226227
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageHomechild
Homechild is an evocative and tender tale of family bonds, lineage and the endurance of love. It centres on alistair Maceachern, a crotchety, funny and fearless farmer. For 70 years he has silently longed for the sister he left behind in Scotland. This story unearths the secret and the shame of the 100,000 Home Children sent to Canada from Britain between 1860 and 1930.
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1st Produced:
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Talonbooks; 1 edition (May 15, 2008) 978-0889225824
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 5 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageHope Slide , The
an actress travels back in memory from the present day to the mid-sixties, from Vancouver to the Doukhobor prison outside the town of Hope, the site of a mountain collapse in 1965. Natural disaster becomes a metaphor for the aIDS crisis, and anarchy is examined both as a liberating social force and as a frightening presence in the natural world.
Notes:
won the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award in 1994
1st Produced:
Tarragon Theatre, Toronto 1992
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 1999 978-0889224117
Music:
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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageJewel
Synopsis:
It's Valentine's Day, and Marjorie reminisces aloud about the loss of her husband on the Ocean Ranger and her decision to begin her life anew
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Tarragon Theatre, Toronto 1987
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Playwrights Co-op, Toronto, 1989 -
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Drama One act
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageLittle Sister
Tackling the issues of self-image, weight preoccupation and eating disorders in teenaged girls, Little Sister tells the story of five teenagers - three girls and two boys - who are caught in the web of contradictory messages about how they should look, feel and behave
Notes:
won the Chalmers Canadian Play Award, theatre for Young Audiences in 1995
1st Produced:
Theatre Direct in Toronto 1992
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 1999 978-0889224117
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Drama One act
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 3 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageShape Of A Girl , The
the Shape of a Girl goes far beyond a simple Dramatization of the seemingly inexplicable code of silence and tacit complicity that surrounded the sensationalixed Reena Virk murder in 1997 on which the play is based. It speaks eloquently and compassionately and offers the embrace of trust as the only way out of the circle of violence.
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1st Produced:
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 2002 978-0889224605
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
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Genre:
Drama One act
Parts:
Male: - Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
Top of PageToronto, Mississippi
Jhana, is a beautiful eighteen-year-old who lives with her mother Maddie and their boarder Bill, a sometime poet. Jhana's father, King, shows up partway through the first act and its his presence for the first time in a long time in this unusual family that really galvanizes all four of the characters into action. King is an elvis impersonator, getting sick and tired of doing the same old song and dance. Jhana is mentally handicapped and working at her first 'job' in a workshop for disabled people where she puts four screws in a bag and then another four screws in another bag and so on. In her mind she is on stage at Maple Leaf Gardens singing and strutting her stuff, just like her Father does. Maddie is trying to keep it together while working full time as a teacher and as a mother, too busy to admit to her own loneliness. Bill is harbouring all sorts of feelings for Maddie that he is afraid to act on. While this is a play about the power of family and love, it is finally a play about self destruction and creation. At its heart is Jhana, whose character begs the question whether the other characters, in their own ways, are any less handicapped. She's good company - funny, driven, passionate and yearning for the same things those around her yearn for - if they can get over their preconceptions about the mentally handicapped and give her the space to achieve her dreams.
Notes:
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1st Produced:
Tarragon Theatre, Toronto 1987
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Talonbooks; 1 edition (May 15, 2008) 978-0889225831
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
Top of PageU.I.C.
Synopsis:
the clerk at the benefits office does not believe the new client
Notes:
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1st Produced:
- -
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Contained in: "Snappy Shorts at the Tarragon" published by Playwrights Canada Press 2005 978-0887547508
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Short play
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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