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Fight On! -the play
The adventures and misadventures of Francis Dickens in the NWMP, 1874-1885
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Kafka's Ape
A translation and adaptation of Franz Kafka’s novella, Ein Bericht Für Eine Akademie
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Death and Taxes
Corruption in the Mulroney Era and the end of Canada The Innocent
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The Source
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Will Watt
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Prescription For Murder
by Day Magatha
Of course you catch the not very hidden reference? Day Magatha = Dame Agatha (Christie).
I got tired of doing Agatha Christie plays as our annual fundraiser, so I wrote a murder mystery for our cabal of gifted amateurs myself. Iconic Montreal Doctor Irene Smyth Simonds was the centre of the gang and I made her the centre of the play, which is actually based, tongue in cheek, on her practice. Irene was extraordinarily generous and supportive of the theatre. She had an incredible reputation as one of the city’s best GPs. In fact, Trevor Ferguson, one of Quebec’s great contemporary English-language writers, and a writer of four plays for Infinitheatre, confided in me once that Irene had actually saved his life with a timely diagnosis. Her patients wanted to stay in her good graces, so they bought tickets to see “her” show. Irene says when she graduated from university she auditioned for the National Theatre School as an actor. She was accepted and then had to face the choice of becoming a doctor or becoming an actor. Luckily for Montreal, in more ways than one, she chose to become a doctor. Pam Dunn and Gus O’Gorman played themselves brilliantly.
When I reread Prescription… fifteen years after we produced it at the Saidye Bronfman Theatre, I was surprised. It is actually damn good. Funny, and political and gives the actors great character challenges. Even wrote in a cameo part, the Mayor of Westmount, to be played by a rotating list of “star” Montreal personalities. -To help the box office. Peter Trent himself played the part one night, Kevin Tierney another. Lots of bad puns on the names of famous European philosophers in the script. Sorry. I had to keep myself amused while writing. The central character, “Dr Maysonne”, should be pronounced as in French, “Maison.” Yes, “House.”
Play is good enough to be given another production.