Taking the Stage: Selections from Plays by Canadian Women

Cecily M. Barrie is a graduate drama student at Mount St. Vincent
University in Halifax.

This collection of excerpts from the plays of 45 Canadian women
playwrights represents the entry submitted by the Canadian
Playwrights’ Union at the Third International Women Playwrights’
Conference held in Australia in July 1994. Arranged into six general
categories such as “Maximizing Attitude,” “Revisioning Place,”
and relationships, the excerpts include revisionist constructs that
“write [women] into the silences” of patriarchal literature (e.g.,
the Bible, folk myths, and Shakespeare) and modern retellings of the
lives of Canadian women both well-known and anonymous. Each excerpt is
accompanied by a brief explanation of its context in the play and a
biographical note on the playwright. Also included in this entertaining
compendium are basic production requirements for presenting the scenes.