The Playwrights Database
DREW HAYDEN TAYLOR
(1962 - )Nationality: Canadian
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Literary Agent: Aurora Artists
Ojibway writer Drew Hayden Taylor (born at Curve Lake First Nation near Peterborough, Ont, 1 July 1962). Hailed by the Montreal Gazette as one of Canada's leading Native dramatists, he writes for the screen as well as the stage and contributes regularly to North American Native periodicals and national newspapers. His plays have garnered many prestigious awards, and his beguiling and perceptive storytelling style has enthralled audiences in Canada, the United States and Germany. His 1998 play Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth has been anthologized in Seventh Generation: An anthology of Native American Plays, published by the Theatre Communications Group. Although based in Toronto, Taylor has travelled extensively throughout North America, honouring requests to read from his work and to attend Arts festivals, workshops and productions of his plays. He was also invited to Robert Redford's Sundance Institute in California, where he taught a series of seminars on the depiction of Native characters in fiction, drama and film. One of his most established bodies of work includes what he calls the Blues Quartet, an ongoing, outrageous and often farcical examination of Native and non-Native stereotypes. Among Taylor's many awards are: the Canada Council Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Theatre (2009); the Governor General's Award for Drama, Nominee (2006) In a World Created by a Drunken God; the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, Nominee (2005); James Buller Aboriginal Theatre Award for Playwright of the Year (1997) Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth; and the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Small Theatre Division (1996) Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth.
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below is a list of Drew Hayden Taylor's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
400 Kilometres All Complete Aboriginal Show Extravaganza alterNatives Baby Blues, The Berlin Blues, The Bootlegger Blues, The Boy In the Treehouse, The Buz'Gem Blues Cerulean Blue Contemporary Gothic Indian Vampire Story, A Dead White Writer on the Floor Education Is Our Right Fearless Warriorrs Girl Who Loved Her Horses God and the Indian In A World Created By A Drunken God Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth Raven Stole The Sun Redskins, Tricksters and Puppy Stew Someday Spirit Horse Sucker Falls Talking Pictures Toronto at Dreamer's Rock400 Kilometres
the third play to feature Janice Wirth. She is pregnant and her adoptive parents have retired and are going to sell the family home and move to England. the Father of her unborn child wants it to be brought up as a Native Canadian and with its own people.
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1st Published:
Talon Books,
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageAll Complete Aboriginal Show Extravaganza
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1st Produced:
Youtheatre, Montreal
1994
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Genre:
Youth play
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PagealterNatives
A very liberal contemporary couple-Angel, an urban Native science fiction writer; and Colleen, a "non-practicing" Jewish intellectual who teaches Native literature-have a dinner party. the guests at this little "sitcom" soiree are couples that represent what by now have become the cliched extremes of both societies-Angel's former radical Native activist buddies; and Colleen's environmentally concerned vegetarian / veterinarian friends. the menu is, of course, the hosts' respectful attempt at shorthand for the irreconcilable cultural differences about to come to a head during the evening: moose roast and vegetarian lasagna. Both the diametrically opposed vehemence (one anonymous caller to the Firehall theatre uttered bomb threats after labeling it "senseless white bashing"); and the inappropriateness (the Vancouver Sun theatre critic said, "It's all too Earnest for me."); of the responses of the amateur and professional critics to the Vancouver performances are testimony to the power of the pain, frustration
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 2000
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Top of PageBaby Blues, The
the Baby Blues is Drew Hayden Taylor's highly wrought farce of patrimony in a stifling, politically correct, post-colonial milieu of "fancy dancers" of every stripe on the Pow wow trail. In juxtaposing three generations of careless wandering hedonists, progenitors of a string of offspring from their six-night stands, with their erstwhile naive women partners who are always left holding the bag, the "big questions" of heritage, family, cultural context and personal identity are ruthlessly stripped of their conventional meanings and become so much useless, embarrassing roadkill on the highway of life. How, for example, is a young anthropology student who has just discovered she is 1/64 native, to behave appropriately and meaningfully in her "other" cultural context? Could it really be true that at the core of all the new-age syncretism of the 20th Century lies a cultural relativism so laughably barren that a gift of whitewall tires can ever offer the possibility of healing a twenty-year relationship of careless
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 1999
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Genre:
Farce
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageBerlin Blues, The
A consortium of German developers shows up on the fictional Otter Lake Reserve with a seemingly irresistible offer to improve the local economy: the creation of Ojibway World, a Native theme park designed to attract European tourists, causing hilarious personal and political divisions within the local community. the Berlin Blues concludes Drew Hayden Taylor's Blues quartet, showcasing contemporary stereotypes of First Nations people, including a fair number that originate from Indigenous communities themselves, to the often outraged delight of his international audiences. Yet Europeans and other ethnic groups are not exempt from Taylor's incisive but good-humoured caricatures. Central to the motivation of these German developers are the hugely successful and best-selling adventure novels of the German author Karl May, whose work Adolf Hitler recommended as good wholesome reading for all ages. Written in the early twentieth century, they popularized Rousseau's image of Indigenous peoples as Noble Savages among European, and especially German youth, and have led to the creation of Karl May theme parks all over central Europe, where adult tourists can shed their inhibitions and play Cowboys and Indians with a seriousness as ridiculous as it is abandoned. This is identity politics stripped of its politically correct hyper-seriousness and dramatized to its absurd and ultimately hilarious conclusion.
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1st Produced:
Autry National Center / Wells Fargo Theatre, Los Angeles
01 Mar 2007
Organisations:
Native Voices At the Autry
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
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Top of PageBootlegger Blues, The
A fifty something regular church goer finds herself in possession of 143 cases of beer to sell for church funds
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Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1991
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
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Top of PageBoy In the Treehouse, The
Simon is of mixed parentage. When one parent dies he is torn as to which world he lives in
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 2000
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 1 Other: -
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Top of PageBuz'Gem Blues
Marianne has talked her mother, Martha, into attending an Elders conference with her, where she is to be used as a resource person, even though Martha doesn't believe she has anything to offer anyone. Held in a college setting, the keynote paper of the conference is a dissertation on "the courting, love, and sexual habits of contemporary First Nations people as perceived by Western Society," delivered by none other than a "Professor Savage." Just to keep the caricatures in balance, Savage's nemesis throughout the action is a young Native man, replete with dark sunglasses and a Mountie coat, "the Warrior Who Never Sleeps." As absurdly claustrophobic as Gilligan's Island (the Professor and Marianne become an item), Taylor is pulling some of our most revered icons-European anthropologists, their Native Elder informants and their militant young warrior critics-off their pedestals, looking for a place to ground them in a world where the most politically correct ethnic representation is a young woman, 1/64th Nativ
Notes:
the Buz'Gem Blues is the third play in Drew Hayden Taylor's ongoing zany, outrageous, often farcical examination of both Native And non-Native stereotypes in what is to become what he calls his "Blues Quartet
1st Produced:
Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Port Dover, Ontario
04 Jul 2001
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 3 Other: -
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Top of PageCerulean Blue
Synopsis:
Two members of a Toronto based blues band quit to get married. Russell the band's leader has no option but to take on his annoying sister's new boyfriend
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1st Produced:
Ryerson Theatre School, Ryerson University, Toronto
2014
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Genre:
Comedy
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageContemporary Gothic Indian Vampire Story, A
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1992
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Top of PageDead White Writer on the Floor
Dead White Writer on the Floor uses two literary conventionstheatre of the absurd and mystery novelsto create one of the funniest and thought-provoking plays ever about identity politics. In Act One, six savages ; noble, innocent, ignorant, fearless, wise and gay, respectively; find themselves in a locked room with the body of a white writer, which they stash in a closet. None of them can figure out how he died or which of them might have killed him. they realize as they point fingers at each other, however, that they are all profoundly unhappy with their lives as they've been constructed over the past four hundred years: Old Lodge Skins wants to know what it feels like to be a young man; Billy Jack wonders what spreading healing rather than pain would feel like; Injun Joe is desperate for an education; Kills Many Enemies is exhausted by his deadly seriousness and yearns for a sense of humour; Pocahontas seeks to feel respected as a woman rather than lusted after as a child sex object; and Tonto wants to come out of the canyon and be the one wearing the mask for a change. Gradually, they figure out that the latest iteration of Gutenberg's invention buzzing like a beehive on the dead writer's desk is actually a dream-catcher, which they can use to rewrite their lives in the image of their own inner beings. Imagine their surprise when they reappear in the same locked room in Act Two as Mike, Jim, Bill, John, Sally and Fredattending an A.A. meeting and bickering among themselves about reserve politics, unmanageable family relationships and whether Bingo has a place in their new air-conditioned casinoand realize the white writer must still be very much alive in their community; his body in the closet is still warm!
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1st Produced:
Magnus Theatre, Thunder Bay, Ontario
28 Jan 2010
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Genre:
Play/Drama
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Male: 5 Female: 1 Other: -
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Top of PageEducation Is Our Right
Synopsis:
Indian spirits attempt to show the Minister of Education the error of his ways when funding for Native Americans is cut.
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1st Published:
Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1990
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Genre:
One Act
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Male: 4 Female: 4 Other: -
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Top of PageFearless Warriorrs
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 1998
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Top of PageGirl Who Loved Her Horses
In her Native American community Danielle is known as "The Girl Who Loved Her Horses" because of her ability to communicate with horses. Many years later a mural of her favourite horse appears on a wall in a derelict part of town
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 2000
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: 2 Other: -
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Top of PageGod and the Indian
Synopsis:
Whilst panhandling on the streets a Native American woman recognizes priest who had abused her when she was in a residential school. She follows him back to his office ready to confront him
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2008
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Male: 1 Female: 1 Other: -
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Top of PageIn A World Created By A Drunken God
Jason, 31 a Candia half-Native is visited by his white half brother. Jason's white Father whom he never knew is dying unless he has a kidney transplant and they want to see if Jason is compatible.
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1st Produced:
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2004
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1st Published:
Talon Books, 2006
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Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageOnly Drunks and Children Tell the Truth
Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth is the emotional story of a woman's struggle to acknowledge her birth family. Grace, a Native girl adopted by a White family, is asked by her birth sister to return to the Reserve for their mother's funeral. Afraid of opening old wounds, Grace must find a place where the culture of her past can feed the truth of her present
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1st Published:
Talon Books, Vancouver, BC, 1998
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Genre:
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male: 2 Female: 2 Other: -
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Top of PageRaven Stole The Sun
Synopsis:
Legends of the Tlinglit - First Nation Canadians
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2004
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Genre:
Youth play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageRedskins, Tricksters and Puppy Stew
Synopsis:
Native politics, identity and racism
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Genre:
Comedy
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageSomeday
Anne has her child taken away by social workers. Christmas time thirty five years on and she still is desperate to see her daughter
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1st Published:
Fifth House Publishers 1993
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Genre:
Comedy Drama Comedy
Parts:
Male: 1 Female: 3 Other: -
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Top of PageSpirit Horse
Synopsis:
Two city children receive a gift from their Father who lives on the prairies - a spirit horse
Notes:
Based on "Tir Na N'Og" by Greg Banks
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Genre:
Youth play
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageSucker Falls
Synopsis:
A family open a casino on an Indian reserve
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1st Produced:
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2001
Organisations:
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1st Published:
Playwrights Guild of Canada
Music:
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Genre:
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Parts:
Male: 5 Female: 3 Other: -
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Top of PageTalking Pictures
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1st Produced:
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1990
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Genre:
-
Parts:
Male: - Female: - Other: -
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Top of PageToronto at Dreamer's Rock
Synopsis:
A teenage Native American boy encounters a member of his tribe from 400 years ago and one from 100 years in the future
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1st Produced:
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1st Published:
Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1990
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Genre:
Comedy Drama One Act
Parts:
Male: 3 Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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