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Drama Canadian

Courageous

by (author) Michael Healey

Publisher
Playwrights Canada Press
Initial publish date
May 2011
Category
Canadian, Gay & Lesbian
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780887549557
    Publish Date
    May 2011
    List Price
    $12.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780887549304
    Publish Date
    Aug 2010
    List Price
    $16.95

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Description

A play in two acts, Healey introduces two sets of characters. In the first, a lawyer and his partner seek a civil ceremony, but are stopped when the officiant won’t perform a homosexual marriage because tenets of his religious beliefs won’t allow it. But tensions only mount when they learn that the officiant himself is openly gay. In the second act, a young couple decide to marry to secure a family for their unborn child, despite their poor financial situation. Facing eviction, the husband—a young Aboriginal man—meets his new neighbour, a refugee from Somalia, and they become fast friends. As the young couple finds happiness, prosperity, and friendship, their competing civil rights tears that friendship apart.Nominated for the 2010 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama

About the author

Michael Healey trained as an actor at Toronto’s Ryerson Theatre School in the mid-eighties. He began writing for the stage in the early nineties and his first play, a solo one-act called Kicked, was produced at the Fringe of Toronto Festival in 1996. He subsequently toured the play across Canada and internationally, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play. The Drawer Boy, his first full-length play, premiered in Toronto in 1999, winning the Dora Award for best new play, the Chalmers Canadian Playwriting Award, and the Governor General’s Literary Award (Canada’s highest literary honour). It has been translated into multiple languages and continues to be produced regularly across North America and internationally. Healey’s other works include The Road to Hell (co-authored with Kate Lynch), Plan B, Rune Arlidge, The Innocent Eye Test, The Nuttalls, Are You Okay, and 1979. His trilogy focusing on Canadian values and politics—Generous, Courageous, and Proud—met with great critical success and have had multiple productions. In all, his plays have won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play five times. He has also adapted works by Chekhov, Molnar, Hecht and MacArthur, Dürrenmatt, and Shaw for the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival, and Soulpepper. He continues to find work as an actor occasionally.

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Michael Healey's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Award

Editorial Reviews

"Healey's dialogue is sushi-knife sharp, his dialectic banter is both ideologically solid and theatrically fascinating and you start to think that if Tom Stoppard were to have been Canadian, he would have written like this."

Toronto Star