Beautiful Man & Other Short Plays

By (author): Erin Shields

Foreword by: Andrea Donaldson

Award-winning playwright Erin Shields has crafted three thought-provoking plays that centre on the inner lives of women, offering space for those who dare to listen.

An eviscerating satire of gender roles in popular culture, Beautiful Man imagines a world in which women are the subjects and men the objects. As three women dissect the latest Hollywood blockbuster, narrative after narrative of strong female characters fold into each other, fusing into a brutally recognizable story.

In Unit B-1717, a woman is trying to clean out her storage locker and say goodbye to the past, but an overwhelming feeling of dread forces her to confront the way she has historically subjugated herself to the needs of others.

In And then there was you, a mother addresses her child as they both visit milestones that offered them each independence, and in the process explores how the profound connection between mother and child evolves.

AUTHOR

Erin Shields

Erin Shields is a Canadian playwright based in Toronto. Much of her work highlights the negation or misrepresentation of women in classical texts by adapting these stories through a feminist lens for a contemporary audience. Erin has won numerous awards for her work including the Governor General’s Literary Award for If We Were Birds and the Quebec Writers Federation Prize for Paradise Lost and The Millennial Malcontent. Other plays include Jane Eyre (Citadel Theatre), Piaf/Dietrich (Mirvish Productions/Segal Centre), Beautiful Man (Factory Theatre), The Lady from the Sea (Shaw Festival), and Instant (Geordie Theatre/YPT).


AUTHOR

Andrea Donaldson

Andrea Donaldson has directed award-winning productions for theatres across Canada, including Soulpepper, Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Theatre Direct, the Great Canadian Theatre Company, the Festival Players of Prince Edward County, the National Theatre School, SummerWorks, the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare in the Ruff, Espace René-Provost, the Toronto Fringe, Red Sky Performance, and Nightwood Theatre. For two decades Donaldson has played a pivotal role in fostering new feminist works for the stage as a freelance director/dramaturge, in her role as Tarragon’s Associate Artistic Director, and at Nightwood Theatre as Program Director of Write from the Hip and now as Artistic Director.


Reviews

“There’s a great deal of rage underlying [Beautiful Man], but also many humorous elements, and so many things to admire about Shields’s acute observations and inversions of expectation . . . Every new play from her is a challenge, and a treat.”
“A brilliant, brutal reminder of the realities of being a woman in a society that values beauty and compliance.”

Awards

  • QWF Playwriting Prize 2022, Short-listed
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    Details

    Dimensions:

    144 Pages
    8.30in * 5.30in * .50in
    .30lb
    180.00gr

    Published:

    December 16, 2020

    ISBN:

    9780369101495

    Book Subjects:

    DRAMA / Women Authors

    Featured In:

    All Books

    Language:

    eng

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