The Josephine Knot
- Publisher
- Playwrights Canada Press
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2018
- Category
- Canadian, Women Authors
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770918931
- Publish Date
- Apr 2018
- List Price
- $17.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781770918955
- Publish Date
- Apr 2018
- List Price
- $12.99
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
After Samantha’s baba dies, her fractured family is summoned to pick through the house full of belongings and trash, leaving taped notes on whatever they want to take. Between old napkins, a closet full of ketchup packets, and a freezer full of rotting meat are gems like a grandfather clock and plastic deer statuettes that hold more sentiment. While her father David sifts through his own memories, all Samantha wants is to find a simple object that could represent her place in the family. When other family members arrive, tug of wars and passive-aggressive conversations commence. In a house full of junk and sadness, it comes down to Samantha and David to find a new way to fit together.
About the authors
Meg Braems plays have won the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama at the Alberta Literary Awards and the Alberta Playwriting Competition, and Blood: A Scientific Romance was nominated for a Governor Generals Literary Award for Drama. Her work has been presented at the Citadel Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Lunchbox Theatre, the Belfry Theatre, Sage Theatre, Sparrow & Finch Theatre, Theatre Transit, Atomic Vaudeville, and Intrepid Theatre. She is a past member of the Citadel Playwrights Forum and was a playwright-in-residence at Workshop West Playwrights Theatre. Her next book, Feminist Resistance: A Graphic Approach (co-authored with Norah Bowman and Domique Hui), will be published by University of Toronto Press in 2019. Meg currently divides her time between Edmonton as the Lee Playwright in Residence at the University of Alberta and Calgary as the co-director of the Alberta Theatre Projects Playwrights Unit.
Amiel Gladstone is a playwright whose work has been performed across Canada, as well as in New York, Philadelphia and Colmar, France. His most recent plays include Hippies and Bolsheviks, The Wedding Pool, We Three Queens, The Black Box and Lena’s Car, which was awarded a Jessie for best original script. Gladstone works as a theatre director and is the current Artistic Producer of Theatre SKAM and the Artistic Associate at Caravan Farm Theatre.
Awards
- Winner, Playwrights Theatre Centre’s THE NEWS Play Competition
Editorial Reviews
“An endearing bit of emotional theatre.” —Bob Clark, Calgary Herald
“Josephine avoids the obvious trappings of family feuds and instead sifts through the emotional debris resulting when a family’s matriarch finally falls.” —Monday Magazine
“This one-act drama—which has its darkly funny moments—is curious and slightly macabre… Braem’s bold writing bodes well for her career—as does her sensitivity to the complex, often contradictory way in which people relate to one another.” —Adrian Chamberlain, Times Colonist