"This haunting work may be the best piece of theater this country has produced this millennium."—The Globe and Mail Read more

Brave the untamed wilderness and discover the wonders of nature in this original Jack London edition with over 30 authentic illustrations and an interactive quiz about Buck’s adventures!Meet Buck, a loyal mix of St. Bernard and Scotch collie enjoying a simple life on a ranch in the sunny Santa Clara Valley, California. Buck’s cozy life is shattered when he is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. Forced into the brutal world of dog sledding, Buck must face the challenges of the Arctic terrain, where only the strongest can survive.As Buck struggles to adapt to the harsh laws of the wild, he hears an ancient call from deep within, awakening his primitive instincts and drawing him towards a life beyond civilization. Guided by the call of his ancestors and the irresistible allure of the wilderness, Buck becomes a powerful and fearless leader, a choice that changes his destiny forever.In the unforgiving, snowy tundra, Buck meets his new owner, John Thornton, a stern master who shapes Buck into a formidable sled dog. Buck forms an unbreakable bond with John, but he is torn by an internal struggle between his love for his master and his primal instincts.First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is considered Jack London’s masterpiece and one of the most fascinating adventures for all ages. Drawing from Jack London's experiences in the Canadian wilderness, this timeless tale about the unbreakable spirit of nature has captivated readers for generations. Join Buck as he embraces the powerful instincts that lie within every soul and discover the special bond between animals and humans.This special edition includes:29 original, first-edition, high-quality illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull.A fun quiz about Buck and the main characters at the end of the book.An exclusive cover design for your collection of classics.Easy-to-read typesetting that both children and adults will love.The Call of the Wild is one of the best classic novels for young boys and girls of all time, a riveting adventure that will make the perfect gift for book lovers and a treasured addition to any collection! Read more

Once an amusing extrovert with a reputation as a prankster, Mr. Rosen is entering his senior years as a stoic, 30-year converted introvert who hates change, has little to no interest in people, and is more than content to have his wife sit in the navigator's seat of his life. Since becoming a practicing introvert, there have been almost no changes in his life, and for the few that there were, his wife had walked him through them, including the recent move to a much smaller home in a lower/middle-class neighborhood where he lives directly next door to a racist whose nine-year-old son addresses him as Mr. Jew. Mr. Rosen had seen the move coming, and he is very much aware of the enormous change to come sometime in the, hopefully, far off future; though, he refuses to give it any attention. That change will come on slowly and painfully and will eventually force him to chart his own life's route. This heartwarming, feel-good novel offers a rollercoaster ride of emotion as Mr. Rosen's habitual world begins to implode while on a collision course with the chaotic world of an innocent child, its troubled mother, and vengeful father. About the series: Taking place primarily in the 70s with believable characters and mostly situated in several areas of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the series chronicles the actions (and their results) of an old and introverted Jewish man, his doting and take-charge wife, a young and struggling single mother, her naive and lonely son, and a boy streetwise beyond his years. Book One - On Herring Cove Road: Mr. Rosen and His 43Lb AnxietyBook Two - Still on Herring Cove Road: Hickory, Dickory, DeathBook Three - Off Herring Cove Road: The Problem Being BlueBook Four - Before Herring Cove Road: Ruth Goldman and the Nincompoop (A Love Story) Read more

Exploring reconciliation and connection through a story that spans seven generations, Frozen River (nîkwatin sîpiy) tells the story of two eleven-year-olds through the eyes of Grandmother Moon. Eilidh and Wâpam are born under the same blood moon, but Eilidh was born in Scotland and Wâpam in Kihci-Manito kâ ayapit, now known as Manitoba. After sailing across the ocean in hopes of a more prosperous life, Eilidh meets Wâpam deep in the forest, and the two become instant friends. Coming from vastly different worlds, Eilidh and Wâpam decide to teach each other about their ways of life. But when a sacred promise between them is broken, the relationship among cultures becomes jeopardized for generations to come.Frozen River (nîkwatin sîpiy) shows audiences that an openness to learn from those who have protected and honoured the waterways for centuries can lead to healing and reconciliation. Read more

This fascinating version of Daniel MacIvor’s most successful play to date lets the reader in on a secret: it was never primarily written as a work for live theatrical performance, but as a vehicle for his development of a screenplay, also included in this new edition. In his surprisingly revealing introduction, MacIvor talks about the genesis of both the play and the movie; the lessons he learned about the differences between the two media; and their radically different stylistic, technical and practical demands on both their authors and their audiences.A well-known practitioner of Canada’s theatre of the avant-garde, MacIvor had for years wanted to write a brilliant screenplay, but there was a problem: he didn’t know how. Most of his stark improvisational work for the live stage, centreed around minimalist sets and props, dramatic effects of light and sound, and usually his own improvisational solo performances, did not translate well into the medium of film. So in order to realize his ambition he decided to create Marion Bridge, a piece of “conventional theatre,” as a vehicle or transitionary playscript he thought he could use as a stylistic “bridge” from the live stage to the cinema. In the fact that Marion Bridge has become his most successful play to date lies one of the most important lessons MacIvor learned about the vast differences between the two media―between live performance that always relies on the audience to participate with the actor(s) in the active and collective creation of landscape and time within the space they share, and the cinematic experience wherein the creators and actors are absent, and the audience is estranged from the action by its passive consumption of a narrative of space and time always understood to take place in someone else’s world outside of the theatre. Read more

A rhapsodic blues tragedy, Harlem Duet could be the prelude to Shakespeare’s Othello and recounts the tale of Othello and his first wife Billie (yes, before Desdemona). Set in contemporary Harlem at the corner of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X boulevards, the play explores the space where race and sex intersect. Harlem Duet is Billie’s story. Read more

Germaine Lauzon has won a million trading stamps from a department store. Her head swimming with dreams of refurbishing and redecorating her working-class home from top to bottom with catalogue selections ranging from new kitchen appliances to “real Chinese paintings on velvet,” she invites fourteen of her friends and relatives in the neighbourhood over to help her paste the stamps into booklets.Raucous, reckless and rude, the women shamelessly share their most secret hopes and fears, complain stridently about their friends and relatives, fantasize wistfully about escaping the misogynist drudgery of their lives and surreptitiously tuck most of the stamps into their purses and clothing, self-righteously appropriating what they consider to be Germaine’s “illegitimate” good fortune.While earlier attempts had been made to stage the realities of Québécois life using colloquial language and a realist backdrop of working-class Montréal, these populist hits were considered rustic and anomalous, while “real” (Parisian) French continued to dominate theatre and “high culture” until the end of the 1950s.As Québec searched for a new socio-political identity and a language that could articulate its rapidly emerging post-colonial reality throughout the “quiet revolution,” Michel Tremblay struggled to find an authentic Québécois voice. Written in 1965, it took three years for him get a first production of Les Belles Soeurs in 1968. Premiering at the Théâtre du Rideau-Vert in the same year that René Lévesque founded the nationalist Parti Québécois, this first of what was to become more than a dozen plays in Tremblay’s Cycle of Les Belles Soeurs became an overnight success. In one fell stroke, Joual, the distinctive Québec vernacular that had evolved over centuries since the end of French colonial rule had been legitimized, and Michel Tremblay, much like Chaucer in English and Dante in Italian, had become “the father of the Québécois language.” Read more

By the time he was writing Gossip in 1977, George Walker had already begun to shift his settings from, on the one hand, North America’s colonial roots in Europe, and on the other, its fascination with other, exotically foreign locales. Yet, even in The Power Plays, Walker is still exploring the ironic and dramatic possibilities of the stereotypes (albeit, by this time, home-grown ones) that continue to provide the fertile ground of contemporary North American sensibilities.With his creation of the Governor General’s Award winning Criminals in Love (1984); the Chalmers Award winning Better Living (1986); and Escape from Happiness (1991), Walker embarked on a whole new direction in his evolution as a playwright. Much less of his comic irony now relied on the recognition of character, much more now relied on the creation of character. In a very real way, George Walker had freed himself to come home.” Set in what is transparently a single neighbourhood, the East End of Toronto, these three interrelated plays were quickly collected in a volume called, naturally, The East End Plays, in 1988. From here, George Walker moved in two related directions: to a further exploration of the margins of contemporary urban life in the global village with the three plays now collected in The East End Plays Part 2 (1999); and to the continued exploration of linking plays around a single location with the wildly successful six-part Suburban Motel (1998). The original three East End Plays are here published in a completely new and revised Talonbooks edition now called The East End Plays Part 1. Read more

After nearly a year of mourning her husband’s death, sixtysomething Dorothy needs to feel alive. So she pitches a road-trip idea to her family—attending Burning Man, the massive arts festival known for its carefree nature that draws half a million people, and she wants to drive there in the RV she had purchased with her husband before he died. After she learns how to drive the RV and her family gets over their shock, Dorothy’s son and his friend join her for her journey, sleeping in parking lots along the way, visiting a sex shop for costumes, and showing her around the massive, dusty grounds in Nevada. But once Dorothy starts to explore alone, whether its finding hilarious chaos in the middle of a naked bike ride parade or experiencing sweet solace and acceptance through art, she learns that she can do more in life than she ever imagined.This comical play, which is based on author Mieko Ouchi’s mother’s own experiences, shows that the search for courage and independence can be lighthearted even when rooted in grief. Read more

Gale has fashioned a spare but powerful tale that thrusts the indignities of slavery and the stupidity of racism out of the murky 18th century and into the here and now.—Martin Morrow, Calgary Herald Read more

Jon, a star professor and author, is racked with self-loathing after his third marriage crumbles around him when he finds himself admiring a student—a girl in a red coat. The girl, nineteen-year-old Annie, is a big fan of his work, and also happens to live down the street. From their doorways to his office to hotel rooms, their mutual admiration and sexual tension escalates under Jon’s control to a surprising conclusion that will leave you wanting to go back and question your perceptions of power as soon as you finish. Read more

Hoping to snag their perfect home in a red-hot housing market, an African Canadian man, a Chinese Canadian man, and a Jewish/Indigenous lesbian couple show up to an open house run by a white settler real estate agent. Each potential buyer feels most deserving of the prize. When a police incident outside traps them together in the house, debate erupts over which of their cultures has faced the most discrimination and exclusion. Passions run high and opinions clash. With wry humour, Open House deftly navigates current conversations about oppression, colonization, and middle-class aspirations. Read more

"Medea" by Euripides is one of the most powerful and enduring tragedies of ancient Greek literature. The play centers on Medea, a sorceress and former princess of Colchis, who finds herself betrayed by her husband, Jason, after he abandons her and their children to marry the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.Consumed by grief and rage, Medea plots a horrific revenge against Jason, defying societal norms and expectations of women's behavior in the patriarchal society of ancient Greece. Her calculated and ruthless actions lead to a shocking and tragic climax, underscoring the play's exploration of themes such as betrayal, revenge, and the status of women.Euripides' portrayal of Medea is complex and multifaceted, presenting her as both a sympathetic figure wronged by her husband and a formidable force capable of extreme actions. The play delves into the psychological depths of its characters, offering a nuanced examination of human emotions and motivations."Medea" is celebrated for its intense drama, powerful characterizations, and its bold critique of gender roles and societal expectations. Euripides' masterful use of dialogue and dramatic tension makes it a timeless work that continues to resonate with audiences and scholars alike. Read more

The archetypal student-teacher romance is cleverly turned on its head for the post-#MeToo era in this striking new play by the acclaimed author of What a Young Wife Ought to Know and Bunny.Jon, a star professor and author, is racked with self-loathing after his third marriage crumbles around him when he finds himself admiring a student—a girl in a red coat. The girl, nineteen-year-old Annie, is a big fan of his work, and also happens to live down the street. From their doorways to his office to hotel rooms, their mutual admiration and sexual tension escalates under Jon’s control to a surprising conclusion that will leave you wanting to go back and question your perceptions of power as soon as you finish. Read more

A brand new edition of the smash-hit play, now a wildly popular CBC TV series. Mr. Kim is a first-generation Korean immigrant and the proud owner of Kim’s Convenience, a variety store located in the heart of downtown Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood. As the neighbourhood quickly gentrifies, Mr. Kim is offered a generous sum of money to sell — enough to allow him and his wife to finally retire. But Kim’s Convenience is more than just his livelihood — it is his legacy. As Mr. Kim tries desperately, and hilariously, to convince his daughter Janet, a budding photographer, to take over the store, his wife sneaks out to meet their estranged son Jung, who has not seen or spoken to his father in sixteen years and who has now become a father himself. Wholly original, hysterically funny, and deeply moving, Kim’s Convenience tells the story of one Korean family struggling to face the future amidst the bitter memories of their past. Read more

Winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play Nominated for the Governor General's Award This award-winning play by Native playwright Tomson Highway is a powerful and moving portrayal of seven women from a reserve attempting to beat the odds by winning at bingo. And not just any bingo. It is THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD and a chance to win a way out of a tortured life. The Rez Sisters is hilarious, shocking, mystical and powerful, and clearly establishes the creative voice of Native theatre and writing in Canada today. Read more

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TIME: All. SPACE: The Multiverse. Come along for the ride to Kamloopa, the largest Powwow on the West Coast. This high-energy Indigenous matriarchal story follows two urban Indigenous sisters and a lawless Trickster who face our world head-on as they come to terms with what it means to honour who they are and where they come from. But how to go about discovering yourself when Christopher Columbus allegedly already did that? Bear witness to the courage of these women as they turn to their Ancestors for help in reclaiming their power in this ultimate transformation story. In developing matriarchal relationships and shared Indigenous values, Kamloopa explores the fearless love and passion of two Indigenous women reconnecting with their homelands, Ancestors, and stories. Kim Senklip Harvey’s play is a boundary-blurring adventure that will remind you to always dance like the Ancestors are watching. Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story is the work of Kim Senklip Harvey, a proud Indigenous woman from the Syilx, Tsilhqot’in, Ktunaxa, and Dakelh First Nations, listed for the Gina Wilkinson Prize for her work as an emerging director and widely considered to be one of this land’s most original voices among the next generation of Indigenous artists. Read more

Waiting for the Parade is John Murrell’s play, set in Calgary during World War II, in which five women gather to work for the war effort while their men are away. Waiting for the Parade was first performed by Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary. Subsequently, it has been performed by Northern Light Theatre, Edmonton; Bastion Theatre, Victoria; Tarragon Theatre, Toronto; the National Art Centre, Ottawa; Centaur Theatre, Montreal; and at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in London, England. Read more

For more than three decades, Robert Lepage’s dynamic multimedia performance works have been produced on stages worldwide. Celebrated for his bold, visionary aesthetic, Lepage has received several high-profile commissions in recent years, including two Peter Gabriel world tours, Cirque du Soleil’s KÁ in Las Vegas, a dramatic staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Lorin Maazel’s 1984 at London’s Royal Opera House.Despite Lepage’s prolificacy, and his status as one of the pioneers of new media performance, little critical writing about his work has been published, particularly in English. Ludovic Fouquet’s The Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage, translated for the first time into English, thus presents much-needed in-depth analysis of Lepage’s strategies and practices.The book’s title references the experimentation so integral to Lepage’s creative process and the ways in which he and his creative arts company, Ex Machina, have always been attuned to the synergistic possibilities that emerge when art encounters science and technology. Whether as a playwright, actor, film director, or stage director, Lepage is forever in search of new mutations of form and expression, and his unexpected narratives often write themselves out of discoveries he makes when staging a piece – indeed stagecraft often guides story in Lepage’s creative realm.This full-colour volume will be of keen interest for theatre practitioners of all kinds, from set designers to directors, from academics to fans. Read more