-

-

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Childrens play

3

2

doubling

Music by Ian Barnett

-

Tarragon Theatre Spring Arts Fair, Toronto.

May 1998

Tarragon Theatre

Snappy Shorts at Tarragon, Playwrights Canada Press, 2004

0-88754-750-8

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

-

Comedy

1

1

-

-

An eight minute comic play ideal for a festival situation. John persuades a reluctant Jenna to "try" the upcoming show. As they wait for the performance to start they bicker about his passion for theatre, but their fight reveals the cracks in their relationship. Will he choose theatre or her?

4th Line Theatre, Millbrook, Ontario

07 Aug 2007

4th Line Theatre

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 2008

978-1-55435-107-7

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Musical, murder mystery

-

7

5

musicians

The above is the minimum cast with doubling. There are 27 plus parts.

In the heyday of vaudeville, Florence Kinrade, a talented and ambitious young singer from Hamilton, Ontario, convinces her affluent Presbyterian family that she's the soloist at a church in Richmond, Virginia, when she's actually performing in vaudeville. In February of 1909, shortly after she is brought back to Hamilton, her elder sister, Ethel is brutally murdered in the family home. Florence, in the house at the time, says the murderer was a tramp. The city, over-run with vagrants, is horrified and clamours for action. George Blackstock, a noted prosecutor from Toronto, is brought to Hamilton for the inquest and seems determined to forge a connection between Florence's 'adventures' in the south and the murder in Hamilton. The whole of North America watches in fascination as the seasoned lawyer takes on the performer. Did Florence get away with murder? The play uses music from the vaudeville period, and the various 'acts' of a vaudeville show to tell the story of one of the most notorious unsolved cases in Canadian legal history.

Toronto schools

Mar 2009

Shoestring Opera

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Opera - comedy

-

2

2

4 puppets

The libretto was written so that two singers can play two roles each. These actors also voice the puppet characters when necessary.

'Bozo's Fortune,' an opera for primary schools, is adapted from Gioachino Forzano's libretto for Puccini's 'Gianni Schicchi.' Uncle Bozo has died and left his fortune to stray cats. The greedy relatives who have been counting on a windfall are devastated. They make use of a trickster - the foreigner, Johnny Schicchi, to try to overturn the will but he outwits them all. With broad humour and audacious impersonation, 'Bozo's Fortune' is a wickedly funny fable. Greed is exposed, avarice is punished, and love is triumphant.

School tour, Ottawa, Ontario

Jan 1998

Straight Stitching Productions

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 1999

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Drama

One Act

-

1

-

-

A one-act play for children 5 - 10. Brigit Bondfast is a space scientist with passion, pizzaz and a problem. She wants to go to Mars. But on this particular day it doesn't look likely. She and her co-scientists are trying to find a way to grow food on the space shuttle and things are going very badly! She comes home to see if she can't solve the problem there, only to find a group of eager primary school students waiting to visit her home laboratory. Unable to disappoint the children, she takes them on a wild ride of science and imagination where ladders and space ships, vinegar and chocolate cake, hula hoops and hockey sticks all come together in a physical extravaganza as Brigit works out one step in the solution to growing plants in space.

Wakefield Tricycle Co

1979

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Play/Drama

-

0

-

-

Busker uses puppet show to get back at a world which has always bullied and defeated him

On tour, Ontario

1990

Straight Stitching Productions

Theatrefolk, 2003

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

-

Play/Drama

-

4

-

-

Indira (17) has dragged her reluctant West Indian friend, Sharon, along to a self-defense for women class at the local community centre. Sharon would rather be spending the time with her boyfriend, Calvin. The only other student is Anne, a white single mother of 4. They are all facing a different kind of violence in their lives, but divided by age, race and expectations, they prove a handful for Firoza, the South Asian instructor. It is only when she tells them the ancient story of Fetneh who carried a calf up 60 steps every day for 6 years, that the connections begin to be made and strength of spirit is seen to be as essential as strength of body. The four scenes of the play are linked by katas, the strictly choreographed, powerful sequences of movements that are a central part of karate.

CBC Radio

1988

-

Playwrights Co-op, Toronto,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

-

Play/Drama

4

13

-

-

A teenager uses her diary to help her deal with the myriad of difficult choices she faces in her attempt to survive life at home and at school

Touring

1975

Wakefield Tricycle Company

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Musical

-

0

-

by Shirley Barrie and Eric Twiname, music by Ian Barnett and Steven Halliwell

-

Alumnae Theatre, Toronto, Ontario

1997

Alumnae New Ideas Festival

Brooklyn Publishers, 1999

1-930961-00-6

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Comedy/Drama

Ten Min

-

1

-

-

Ten minutes. Jenny, 14, is trapped on a duck blind on a foggy fall night while her parents circle in their boat trying to find her. Too angry to help them out, Jenny pours out her frustrations about growing up to a duck.

Toronto schools

May 2006

Japanese Folklore Theatre Productions

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 2007

978-1-55435-065

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Drama

One Act

4

3

1 percussionist

Can be done with 3 actors

This 45 minute play is for audiences from 4 - 12. When Sachiko's mother gets ill, she worries about how her young daughter will cope since it is a dangerous thing for a girl to be poor and pretty and alone. The goddess Kannon advises her to place a large flower basket on Sachiko's head. The mother does, telling her daughter that when the time is right, the basket will come off. But the flower basket seems to bring Sachiko nothing but trouble. When her mother dies, Sachiko is driven away from their small farm, and cannot get work. No one has time for a girl who is different. But with the help of a minstrel, her own industriousness, and the love of a man who has never seen her face, she finds happiness.

D.B. Clarke Theatre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

24 Oct 2003

Geordie Theatre Productions in Association with Straight Stitching Productions

Theatrefolk, 2005

1-894870-53-0

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
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Drama

Childrens play

2

3

1 percussionist

Can be done with 2f, 2m. If desired additional puppeteers can be used.

The play runs just under an hour. When the food runs out, Hansel and Gretel are left by their parents in the fearful forest to fend for themselves. Hansel thinks he has to save his little sister, but when they end up in the house of the wicked witch, she's the one who saves him. Physical theatre, inventive language, percussion and puppets are woven together to in this imaginative reimagining of the classic fairy tale about conquering fear and developing self-reliance.

Theatre by the Bay, Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, Canada

Jul 1997

Theatre by the Bay,

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 1999

978-1-55173-651-8

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

-

Play/Drama

2

3

-

-

In 1542, 19 year old Marguerite de Roberval contrived to join her brother, Jean Francois "Sieur" de Roberval, on the great expedition to establish the first French colony in the new world. But when Jean Francois discovered that she had fallen in love with an unsuitable young nobleman on board ship, he abandoned Marguerite on a deserted island in the Strait of Belle Isle for daring to choose love over duty. Inspired by this real but little known event, the play takes place 2 1/2 years later. Marguerite has lost her lover, nurse and infant son and is on the verge of madness when she sees a fishing boat weighing anchor. Her confused mind finds the prospect of returning to France more terrifying than another cold winter alone in the New World. She conjures up remembered, imagined and possible future encounters with her poetic and doomed lover, Eugene, her practical and devoted nurse, Damienne, her arrogant brother, Jean-Francois, and her mentor, the intelligent yet conformist Queen of Navarre. Torn between love, despair, remorse and the desire for revenge, she struggles to decide whether to live or die.

CBC Radio "Morningside".

1995

-

Playwrights Co-op, Toronto,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Radio

-

4

11

-

-

Marion instructs her younger sister in the fine art of growing up as an undertaker's daughter

1982

-

Playwrights Co-op, Toronto,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Historical musical

-

6

3

May BF performed with up to 17 actors

Music by I Barnett

A musical adventure with escapology and sword play, adapted from Harrison Ainsworth's novel, Jack Sheppard, and historical records. A young carpenter's apprentice turned thief in 18th century London, Jack becomes a popular hero because of the way he constantly outwits the corrupt thief taker, Jonathan Wild, and escapes from every jail he is put into including Tyburn. Becoming a symbol of the desire of the people to escape oppression, Jack even cheats the hangman's noose

-

-

-

Currency Press, 1997

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

comedy/drama

-

2

3

-

-

Motion picture plays.

-

-

-

Brooklyn Publishers, 2000

1-931000-52-2

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Black Comedy

Ten Min

-

1

-

-

Ten minutes. Stephanie resents having to help with the family business of running a funeral home. From scaring away potential boyfriends, to having her hair cut with the same clippers used on the dead, to picking up a body at the madhouse in the middle of the night, it seems her life of "weirdom" will never end. A blackly comic look at a not-so-normal teenage life.

CBC Radio

1990

-

Playwrights Co-op, Toronto,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Historical Drama

-

12

4

-

-

Marguerite de Roberval contrived to accompany her brother, the leader of the first French attempt to settle Canada in 1542. Displeasing him, he abandoned her on an uninhabited island in the Strait of Belle Isle where she gutsily survived for nearly three years.

Touring

1976

Wakefield Tricycle Company

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Musical

-

0

-

by Shirley Barrie and Eric Twiname, music by Ian Barnett and Steven Halliwell

-

Touring

1976

Wakefield Tricycle Company

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Musical

-

0

-

by Shirley Barrie and Eric Twiname, Ian Barnett and Peter John; music by Ian Barnett, Diane Adderley and Steven Halliwell

-

-

-

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Childrens play

2

3

-

Music by Andrew Dickson

-

-

-

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Childrens play

3

2

-

Music by Ian Barnett

-

Alumnae Theatre, Toronto, Ontario

Oct 2001

Alumnae Theatre Company

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Play/Drama

4

5

11+

There are nine main roles but many other supporting characters

The play is inspired by true events. In1830 Paris is in the midst of a recession. The city is further rocked by the Saint Simonians, a radical social movement that believes in technology, universal education, free trade, emancipation for women and the poor, and free love. Suzanne Voilquin, a disaffected, poor seamstress is persuaded by her friend, Jeanne, and the charismatic leader, Father Enfantin, to join the movement, and she embraces its goals with enthusiasm and energy. But the movement's good intentions meet strong official opposition and a progressive social movement begins to evolve into a cult. Imprisoned and rejected in France, the remaining Saint Simonians set off for Egypt. Their goal is to physically join East and West by building a canal through Suez and to spiritually link them by finding an eastern Mother to join with Father Enfantin to lead society to equality. As symbolism increasingly takes over from reality, Suzanne's discomfort grows, but she has invested too much to leave. She loses love and friendship before she can finally accept that her faith has been misplaced and begin to construct a more meaningful way forward.

Alummae Theatre, Toronto

.Mar 2005

Alumnae New Ideas Festival

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Comedy/drama

One Act

-

1

1 percussionist

-

One act. Badly burned by love, Jane is spending yet another Saturday night at home, reading about her current obsession, possession. But then she hears strange noises, and begins an edgy conversation with a ghostly visitor, who responds only with sounds. In the course of their 'conversation', she is forced to confront why she is possessed by the past, pushed to exorcise her demons and helped to reach in a bizarre way beyond her comfortable room.

-

-

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

-

-

1

-

-

Caitlin has moved away from her family. The only present she receives at Christmas from her mother is a recipe

School tour, Toronto, Ontario

May 2003

Japanese Folklore Theatre Productions

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 2004

978-1-55173-984-7

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Drama

One Act

2

3

1 percussionist

-

Running 35 minutes, this is an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale. Yoshi, a young man, despairs at the death of his beloved father. His wife, Yumiko, suggests he go on a trip to Kyoto to the shrine. In the amazing city, Yoshi buys a mirror in which he thinks he sees his father come back to life. Yumiko thinks he's brought home a woman from Kyoto. After much confusion, the wise woman at the temple, who of course thinks she sees another wise woman, brings the warring young couple together.

Alumnae Theatre, Toronto, Ontario

04 Apr 2001

Alumnae New Ideas Festival

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 2002

978-1-55173-878-9

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Tragicomedy of Errors

-

1

1

-

-

The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. It's judgement day, and John, who is 34, finds himself buried beside an old woman who claims she's his wife, Mary. But she's nothing like the woman he knew. Can they navigate the minefields of memory in time? A tragicomedy of errors. Running time 35 minutes.

Theatre of Thelema, London

1982

-

Playwrights Co-op, Toronto,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Musical fantasy

Musical

2

2

-

Music by Ian Barnet

Two kids stow away on a boat which is dumping a horrible blue goo into the sea. The boat gets mysteriously pulled down to the bottom of the sea by survivors of the lost continent of Atlantis, who have adapted to life under water after destroying their world with technology centuries ago. Billie and Wally have to convince the Atlantans that they're not the polluters and then they have to figure out how to use the resources of the sea to get back home.

-

-

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Childrens play

-

-

-

-

-

1984

Tricycle Theatre Company

Encore Performance Publishing, 1999

1-57514-354-2

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

-

Play/Drama

1

2

-

-

A participatory play for audiences 4-7 about the power of collective creativity. Shusha's bored with her doll, Shareen, and wants an adventure. She has a new adventure story she wants to share with the audience, but the Story Snatcher, who listens for stories with his huge flapping ears and smells them out with his big honking nose, snatches the book and takes it down to his underworld home. Shareen, proving to be not nearly as lifeless and boring as Shusha thinks, gets the audience to help Shusha follow the Story Snatcher and after a series of adventures they recover her book. When Shusha finally shows the audience the story, it is the illustrated tale of the adventure they've all just been through.

School tour. Toronto, Ontario

May 2003

Japanese Folklore Theatre Productions

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 2004

978-1-55173-986-1

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

short comedy

Childrens play

1

3

percussionist

Because the central character is a young boy the play could be done with 4 females. The Thundergod can be male or female

This short, 15 minute play is adapted from a Japanese folk tale. When the Thundergod loses the ohesos (belly buttons) in his thunderdrum and can't make thunder, he tries to steal Sonjo's belly button. Sonjo and his mother trap the Thundergod in the laundry but without thunder there is no rain and the rice crop withers. Sonjo makes the connection between thunder and rain and saves the crop.

On tour, Toronto, Ontario

1989

Straight Stitching Productions

Borealis/Tecumseh Press, 1991

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Drama with music

One Act

-

5

-

Music by Arlene Mantle

One act. The play was inspired by the painful, funny and incredibly gutsy stories of immigrant women who work in the garment industry. Mei Lee, a young woman from Hong Kong faces problems with communication, sabotage from other workers and indifference from the Supervisor until making friends and alliances with workers from Portugal, Jamaica and the Phillipines, she stands up for her rights and takes a big step toward belonging in her new country. Commissioned by Mayworks Festival of Labour and the Arts and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the play was first presented by a cast of garment workers and professional actresses at the Mayworks Festival in 1987. The script was rewritten with a smaller cast for the professional tour.

Unicorn Theatre, London

1985

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Childrens one act

2

2

-

-

Topsy emerges from an egg on Ted Turvey's milk float

Alumnae Theatre, Toronto, Ontario

1997

Alumnae New Ideas Festival

In "Going it Alone", Signature Editions, 1997

0-921-833-52-0

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Drama

15 Min

-

1

-

-

Fifteen minutes. Margaret, 50, is in her garden having a go at God about menopause. In the process she acknowledges the possibility that she may be confiding in the wrong Being.

Workman Theatre Project, Toronto.

1993

-

Playwrights Co-op, Toronto,

-

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Drama

One Act

-

0

9 characters

-

A comic journey through the history of the Queen Street Mental Health Centre from 1850 to today, revealing how ". . .this province has stumbled from crisis to crisis never committing itself to a coherent mental health policy."

On tour, Toronto, Canada

Jan 1995

Straight Stitching Productions

Playwrights Guild of Canada, 1995

978-1-55173-194-0

If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Drama

One Act

2

1

-

-

A one act play for audiences from 5 - 10. Shelley(6) always imagines the worst thing that can happen which drives her brother Tony (10) nuts. Shelley desperately wants to play miniature golf with Tony and his friends but he refuses to take her unless she spends an afternoon in an old abandoned house. Fighting her imaginary terrors, she rides her tricycle to the house where she meets a new boy, Brad, who has only one leg. Immediately making friends, Shelley and Brad figure out how he too can play mini golf but their play is interrupted by Tony who refuses to take either of them to play for real. How Shelley and Brad get him to change his mind is part of an exciting, fast-paced story in which themes of learning to accept difference, solving problems creatively, and resolving conflict are subtly interwoven.