Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Drama Canadian

Punch Up

by (author) Kat Sandler

Publisher
Playwrights Canada Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2017
Category
Canadian, Women Authors
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781770917422
    Publish Date
    Feb 2017
    List Price
    $17.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781770917446
    Publish Date
    Feb 2017
    List Price
    $12.99

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Duncan has always been a pretty boring guy, leading a simple life while working at a bread factory. Then he stumbles upon Brenda, a sad young woman who’s about to end her life. Convinced he’s fallen in love, Duncan strikes up a desperate deal: if he can get her to laugh, she'll give life another shot, but if she doesn’t even giggle, he'll help her go through with her plan. There’s just one catch: Duncan isn’t funny. At all. So he borrows Pat, his second-favourite comedian, to help him come up with the perfect routine. But Pat is having a hard time mustering his sense of humour after a bad break-up, and the last thing he wants to do is teach a lonely loser the difference between knock-knock jokes and schadenfreude while chained to a typewriter.

A tragicomedy of three misfits, Punch Up navigates a hostage situation and a life-or-death comedy lesson to show just how far we’ll go for a laugh.

About the author

Kat Sandler is a writer, screenwriter, director, and the artistic director of Theatre Brouhaha. She has directed fourteen of her original plays, including the Dora Mavor Moore Award–nominated Bang Bang, the Toronto Best of Fringe hits Bright Lights, Punch Up, Help Yourself, and Delicacy, and Liver, Cockfight, and Retreat. Her play Mustard won the 2016 Dora Award for Outstanding New Play. She was the 2015 recipient of NOW Magazine’s Audience Choice Award for Best Director and Best Playwright. She is the Canada Council Playwright-in-Residence at Tarragon Theatre and is currently working on two television productions with Shaftsbury and eOne. Kat is a graduate of Queen’s University. She lives in Toronto.

Kat Sandler's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“The writing needed no ‘punching up’ at all; I want some of what Kat Sandler’s been drinking.” —Crystal Wood, Mooney on Theatre

“Sandler's knack for realistic dialogue makes this story not only feasible, but gleefully relatable.” —Lauren Gillett, Theatromania