About Writing A Canadian Musical

Like the cat that proudly carries in his dead mouse and lays it on the carpet, in presenting his work the Canadian playwright is apt to be disappointed by his reception. The cat, in fact, enjoys one important advantage over the playwright; whatever else may betide, his work is unlikely to be ignored

In laying out my mice on the carpet of this website then I am not sure what my audience will be. Quite possibly there won't be one.

When I first started writing plays and music a few years ago I thought my work might be performed. Now I only hope that a few people will read some scenes or listen to a bit of the music. Perhaps the work might appeal to the rapidly diminishing number of people who take an interest in Canadian history and cultural experience.

Licence And Use

My intention is to licence my work under the Creative  Commons Canadian attribution, share-alike, non-commercial licence, although I haven't got around yet to writing this explicitly in all the pieces posted here.

Plays are not quite as easy to read as novels. I will try to include a synopsis and some background with each play to help you decide whether it might be of interest.

In writing the plays and music I have learned some practical things about playwriting and musical composition and typesetting. I am including some brief articles about these on this website. I hope the navigation is self-explanatory.

A Musical Theatre That Never Existed

Since about 2011 I have been trying to create a kind of theatre and body of music that scarcely existed Canada in the times that inspired them.

For example Tobiana is a musical set in Toronto on the eve of the proclamation of Confederation in 1867. There was at the time some music by Canadian composers and arrangers being published especially by Albert Nordheimer, but not, as far as I am aware, much theatre by English speaking Canadian playwrights.

Where I have used music in my plays I have tried to use a combination of  typical idioms from the period of the play ( polka and waltz rhythms and 19th century chromatic harmonies in Tobiana , and 1920s foxtrot rhythms and jazz harmonies in The Pill.