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Beverley Simons

BEVERLEY SIMONS

  (1938 - )

Nationality:    Canadian
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a

Beverley Rosen Simons is a Canadian playwright. Her plays explore artistic form, as well as assumptions of class and gender with a perspicacity ahead of second generation feminism of the 1960s, which influenced her youth. Rosen grew up in Flin Flon, Manitoba and attended high school in Edmonton, Alberta. She identified as an artist early, and had difficulty deciding whether to study as a pianist or to go into creative writing. With the help of a scholarship to the Banff School of Fine Arts, she decided to pursue writing and eventually enrolled at McGill to study English literature in 1955. At McGill, Rosen became increasingly involved in theatre, helping to found the McGill University Players. After transferring to UBC, she graduated with a BA degree in English and Theatre in 1959. Rosen's first full-length play, "The Elephant and the Jewish Question", was a "well-made" domestic drama staged by the Vancouver Little Theatre for the 1968 Dominion Drama Festival. Subsequently, she avoided the conventions of the "well made" form; her travel and extensive reading about theatre in Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and India led her to feel "cramped and dissatisfied. . .in traditional drama forms of the West" (application to the Canada Council, 1970). Rosen's second full-length play, "Crabdance", was greeted by critics as a brilliant, controversial work. It remains Rosen's best-known play. It has received six professional stagings, dramatizations by CBC Radio and CBC TV (never aired), an ACCESS video of the 1976 Citadel Theatre production, and two editions by in Print publications and Talonbooks. Rosen's short plays The Crusader and Triangle, Preparing, and Green Lawn Rest Home, reveal a growing frustration with the production restrictions of a realism-oriented Canadian theatre establishment. Presented at a University of British Columbia International Critics' Conference in 1976, these polemical plays are rhythmic, graphic, and allegorical. Prologue takes aim at the "ratings-oriented" policies of the CBC, and snipes at audiences who want theatre to be "predictable" or "nice". Instead, her works explore fantasy, brinksmanship, and madness through choral and movement elements that de-stabilize notions of identity, fragment time, and expose power structures within families and communities. Rosen's most ambitious work, Leela Means to Play (1976), is a sprawling epic that has never been professionally produced despite several workshops. It foregrounds serious Canadian social issues featuring the judiciary, the penal system, Indian Reserves, and psychiatric facilities. The size of the cast, the fluid multi-location setting, and the complex social commentary combined with raw emotional undercurrents of the play might have scared producers seeking Canadian hit shows. A master's thesis suggests that the time for Leela Means to Play will "come around" in a future where civil rights issues of the 1960s and 1970s excite more detailed attention, rather than seeming dated. Rosen's most recent play, Now You See It (1996), is unproduced and unpublished but received a workshop by Necessary Angel theatre (1996). A description of the script can be found on the Canadian Literary Encyclopedia. - Wiki

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below is a list of Beverley Simons's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

        Birth, The         Crabdance         Crusader, The         Flephant and the Jewish Question, The         Green Lawn Rest Home         If I Turn Around Quick         Leela Means to Play         My Torah, My Tree         Play, A         Preparing         Prologue         Triangle         Twisted Roots



Birth, The

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
Montreal     1957

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
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Parts:
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Further Reference:
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Crabdance

Crabdance
A tragicomedy in which a lonely woman plays elaborate, ritualistic games with 3 men forced to play her son, her husband and her lover.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
In Press, Vancouver, 1969   978-0889220164

Music:
-

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Genre:
three-act Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Crusader, The

Synopsis:
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Notes:
part of A trilogyPrologue, Triangle, the CrUSAder

1st Produced:
Savage God At York University     1976

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Preparing (collection)", Talonbooks, Vancouver, 1975   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Flephant and the Jewish Question, The

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
Vancouver Little Theatre Association     1968

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
New Play Centre, Vancouver,    -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Three Act Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Green Lawn Rest Home

Synopsis:
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Notes:
full production by Savage God At Simon Fraser University under the direction of John Juliani, 1969

1st Produced:

Organisations:
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1st Published:
Playwrights, Toronto, 1973   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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If I Turn Around Quick

Synopsis:
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Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
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1st Published:
in "Capilano Review", North Vancouver, Summer, 1976   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
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Parts:
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Further Reference:
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Leela Means to Play

Synopsis:
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Notes:
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1st Produced:
Waterford, Connecticut     1978

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Canadian Theatre Review 9", Downsview, Ontario, Winter, 1976   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Two Acts Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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My Torah, My Tree

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
written in 1956

1st Produced:
Unproduced    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Full Length Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Play, A

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Mcgill University Players Club, Montreal     1957

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Preparing

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
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1st Produced:
Simon Fraser University     1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in Capilano Review, January, 1975   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
monologue in 1 Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Prologue

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
part of A trilogyPrologue, Triangle, the CrUSAder

1st Produced:
Savage God At York University     1976

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Preparing (collection)", Talonbooks, Vancouver, 1975   -

Music:
-

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:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Triangle

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
part of A trilogyPrologue, Triangle, the CrUSAder

1st Produced:
Savage God At York University     1976

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Preparing (collection)", Talonbooks, Vancouver, 1975   -

Music:
-

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:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Twisted Roots

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
as Beverley Rosen written in 1954

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "First Flowering", Kingswood House, Toronto, 1956   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
verse Drama One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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