Toronto at Dreamer's Rock & Education is Our Right
Two One-Act Plays
- Publisher
- Fifth House Books
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2015
- Category
- Canadian
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781927083741
- Publish Date
- Apr 2015
- List Price
- $12.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781897252703
- Publish Date
- Oct 2011
- List Price
- $14.95
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Where to buy it
Description
In these two plays, Drew Hayden Taylor delves into the past and speculates about the future as he examines the dilemmas facing young Native Canadians. Toronto at Dreamer's Rock is a moving portrayal of a teenage boy who is torn between the traditions of his people, which he only vaguely understands, and the lure of modern life. His magical encounters with two members of his tribe - one from 400 years in the past and one from the future - make him aware of how little he has thought about what it means to be an Indian. Education is Our Right borrows from the familiar story of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but in this version the spirits of Education Past, Present and Future attempt to show the Minister of Indian Affairs the error of his ways. Drew Hayden Taylor combines humour, passion, spirituality, and tough realism to create a hopeful vision of the future. Both plays have toured extensively to schools in Ontario and Quebec.
About the author
Ojibway writer Drew Hayden Taylor is from the Curve Lake Reserve in Ontario. Hailed by the Montreal Gazette as one of Canada’s leading Native dramatists, he writes for the screen as well as the stage and contributes regularly to North American Native periodicals and national NEWSpapers. His plays have garnered many prestigious awards, and his beguiling and perceptive storytelling style has enthralled audiences in Canada, the United States and Germany. His 1998 play Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth has been anthologized in Seventh Generation: An Anthology of Native American Plays, published by the Theatre Communications Group. Although based in Toronto, Taylor has travelled extensively throughout North America, honouring requests to read from his work and to attend arts festivals, workshops and productions of his plays. He was also invited to Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute in California, where he taught a series of seminars on the depiction of Native characters in fiction, drama and film. One of his most established bodies of work includes what he calls the Blues Quartet, an ongoing, outrageous and often farcical examination of Native and non-Native stereotypes.