Hot Thespian Action!

Ten Premiere Plays from Walterdale Playhouse

Edited by Robin C. Whittaker
Categories: Art & Performance Studies, Performance Arts (theatre, Dance & Music)
Publisher: Athabasca University Press
Ebook (PDF) : 9781897425275, 584 pages, October 2008

Table of contents

Introduction

The Plays
The Canadian Fact (1967) - Wilfred Watson
Chief Shaking Spear Rides Again or The Taming of the Sioux (1974) - Warren Graves
Mutants (1981) - Brad Fraser
Swipe (1981) - Gordon Pengilly
The Tenth Negative Pig (1983) - Barbara Sapergia and Geoffrey Ursell
The Three Sillies (1983) - Mary Glenfield
Just (1999) - Trevor Schmidt
The Beaver Effect (2002) - Mark Stubbings
[ice land] (2003) - Jonathan Seinen
The Trial of Salomé (2007) - Scott Sharplin

Appendix I: New Plays Premiered by Walterdale Theatre Associates
Appendix II: Music
Notes / Bibliography

Description

In Hot Thespian Action! Robin Whittaker argues that new plays can thrive in amateur theatres, which have freedoms unavailable to professionalized companies. And he proves it with ten relevant, engaging playscripts originally produced by one of Canada’s longest-running theatres, Edmonton’s acclaimed Walterdale Theatre Associates. This collection challenges notions that amateur theatre is solely a phenomenon of the pre-professional past. In this, the first North American anthology in eighty years, Whittaker makes an important contribution to Canadian theatre studies. Plays by: Brad Fraser, Mary Glenfield, Warren Graves, Gordon Pengilly, Barbara Sapergia & Geoffrey Ursell, Trevor Schmidt, Jonathan Seinen, Scott Sharplin, Mark Stubbings, and Wilfred Watson.

Reviews

"As a contribution to Canadian theatre, Hot Thespian Action! deserves notice, not just for the novelty of the subject, but for the perceptive commentary in the critical materials and the eclectic collection of undiscovered plays."

- Nicholas Hanson