Behind the Scenes: A Canadian Scene Book, Vol. 1

Susan Patrick is a librarian at the Ryerson Poly-technical Institute.

These two volumes comprise excerpts from Canadian plays and are intended
to provide texts for drama students for scene study. The selections
cover a wide range of styles and forms of theatre and varied subject
matter. The plays were selected not only to reflect Canada’s diverse
geographical, historical, and cultural elements, but also to provide an
interesting variety of subjects and characters for students. The
playwrights range from the well-known (Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell,
David French, David Fennario, Michel Tremblay, Carol Bolt, Timothy
Findley) to the less-known, and include many women and young writers.
Vol. 1 is intended for a general audience, while Vol. 2 contains more
adult situations and language. The editors, both of whom have been
involved in teaching drama, have annotated each selection with comments
for students on technique and style, background information on the play
and its themes, plot and character summaries, and biographical and
professional information on the author. Behind the Scenes is an
invaluable work for Canadian drama students, and is also of interest to
the general reader, who may be introduced to some new writers and plays,
and may well want to read the full texts of many titles.