Twenty Years at Play

Vancouver’s New Play Centre led the way in developing and producing the work of playwrights from Western Canada for the emergent Canadian theatre in the 1970s. The New Play Centre has been a major force in Canadian cultural life for two decades; it retains its dual role as playwrighting workshop and production company and remains an important facility for dramatists to reach national and international audiences.

To mark the New Play Centre’s twentieth year, Talonbooks presents a collection of eight of the finest plays produced by the company from 1975 to 1989: Herringbone by Tom Cone; Ned and Jack by Sheldon Rosen; Something Red by Tom Walmsley; Dreaming and Duelling by John Lazarus and Joa Lazarus; War Babies by Margaret Hollingsworth; Under the Skin by Betty Lambert; The Idler by Ian Weir; and The Wolf Within by Alex Brown. All of these plays have been produced throughout Canada, and often abroad, and remain in active production today. Each script appears in its most current form, with the playwright’s latest revisions, along with biographical and production data and photos.

AUTHOR

Linda Griffiths

Professor of English and Theatre at the University of British Columbia and a professional actor, Jerry Wasserman has written and lectured widely on Canadian theatre, dramatic literature, theatre history, modern fiction, and blues music; publicly interviewed writers and theatre artists ranging from Margaret Atwood to Stephen Sondheim; and served for over fifteen years as a drama critic on CBC Radio. He is currently theatre critic for The Province newspaper and editor of Vancouverplays.com, an informative Web site that provides up-to-date listings and reviews of local theatre performances. Wasserman grew up in New York and attained an M.A. in English from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Cornell, specializing in twentieth-century literature and drama. He started teaching at UBC in 1972; though his initial research focus was on fiction, his work in the theatre as an actor soon led him to teach mainly drama courses, eventually creating a course in Canadian drama. In addition to his scholarly accomplishments, Wasserman continues to maintain a busy career as an actor. A seasoned veteran on the Vancouver theatre scene, he has also made over two hundred appearances on film and television.