Small Time

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Norm Foster is Canada’s pre-eminent comic playwright and also one of
its most prolific and produced writers. His many plays include his
seminal Canadian play, The Melville Boys. Recently he has turned his
attentions to musical theatre with such works as A Foggy Day, the hit of
the 1998 Shaw Festival.

Molls, the mob, and murder are the main ingredients of Small Time. In
an attempt to hold his marriage together, Marty Birch, a
thirty-something keyboard player, takes a steady job playing backup to
Scott Sherman, a lounge-lizard singer with a gambling problem. Scott is
involved with Cookie Tucker, an enforcer for a local thug who has
ambitions of moving up the organization but whose advancement might very
well be threatened by his involvement with Angela, the nymphomaniac wife
of his boss. Bringing a note of sanity to this ménage а quatre is
Marty’s wife, Sandra, who is tired of living close to poverty line and
wants more from her life, even though she’s not really sure what that
might be.

It’s not surprising that Foster has been compared to Neil Simon; when
it comes to comic writing, he has the Midas touch.