Victoria LOL #3 Playhouse - David French |
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David FrenchDavid French is one of Canada’s most popular and critically acclaimed playwrights.
Born in Coley's Point, Newfoundland 18 January, 1939, the family moved from Newfoundland to Toronto when he was 6. After high school David studied acting, performing professionally (1960-65) before turning full time to play writing. His earliest plays were half-hour TV dramas broadcast on CBC, beginning with "Beckons the Dark River" (1963). His first stage play, Leaving Home (1972), produced and directed by Bill Glassco at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre, portrayed with humor and powerful emotion the generational conflict and cultural alienation within a Toronto family of transplanted Newfoundlanders. Some of David's best-loved works include the semi-autobiographical Mercer plays: Salt-Water Moon, 1949, Leaving Home, Of the Fields Lately and Soldier's Heart. This quintet of plays about a Newfoundland family has been seen by audiences across North America, as well as in Europe, South America, and Australia. His smash-hit backstage comedy Jitters has been performed all over the continent and most of his plays have had successful international runs, including two Broadway productions. David French's works have received many major awards, including the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play for Salt-Water Moon, which was also a finalist for the Governor-General's Award for Drama. Salt-Water Moon also won the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Drama. Leaving Home was named one of Canada’s 100 Most Influential Books (Literary Review of Canada) and one of the 1,000 Most Essential Plays in the English Language (Oxford Dictionary of Theatre). He also won the Chalmers Award for Best New Canadian Play for Of the Fields Lately, an award for which he was nominated five times. In 1988, David French was one of the first to be inducted into the Newfoundland Arts Hall of Honour, and in 2001 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.
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David French is a Newfoundlander who left Coley's Point with his parents at 5 years of age. |
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