About the Play:

Artichoke has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues.

Artichoke is a full-length comedic drama by Joanna McClelland Glass. Set on a farm in Saskatchewan, Artichoke follows a country family driven apart by scandal. Even though they still continue to live in peace, emotions have stewed in silence for 14 years and are ready to burst forth. This touching and funny play offers a warm-hearted glimpse into the lives of a Canadian farm family coming to grips, at last, with a long-standing internal crisis.

Artichoke is set on the Morley farm, in the prairie country of Saskatchewan, in Canada. Walter Morley and his wife Margaret have been estranged for fourteen years, ever since his encounter with a "water witch". This temporary union produced his illegitimate daughter, Lily Agnes, and led to Walter's banishment to the smokehouse. Margaret has remained in the main house, with Lily Agnes (whom she has raised as her own), and her father, Gramps. They are joined for the summer by Gibson McFarland, Gramps' adopted son, now a college professor, who is recovering from a mild nervous breakdown. Gibson's return reopens old wounds and desires, and it is soon apparent (and so reported by two gossipy bachelor neighbours) that Margaret's needs for culture and affection are now being satisfied at last. As summer wanes so must the idyll of Gibson and Margaret, but her transgression, in Walter's eyes, evens the score between them – and as the play ends it is clear that the Morley household, so long divided, will once again know the harmony and love that anger and stubborn pride have so long denied.

Artichoke premiered in 1975 by the noted Long Wharf Theatre, in New Haven, Connecticut starring Colleen Dewhurst, transferred to New York by the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), and was a Finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honouring the best English-language women writers worldwide. Her first full-length play, it had close to 50 productions across the US in its first two years and cemented her reputation as an accomplished dramatist. The Canadian premiere was in 1976 at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and was well received across Canada as a distinctively Canadian play, evoking graphic images of the Prairies during the Depression.

Cast: 2 female, 5 male

What people say:

"Joanna M. Glass is a major new playwright from Canada, and the New York premier of this script is a time for cheers and celebration. She is an original, and she mixes laughter and sadness in unexpected ways." — The Record

"…a poignant, absorbing, and often exhilarating play, beautifully written by Joanna Glass…." — Variety

"In Artichoke Joanna Glass has written a haunting play about coming to terms with life." — Christian Science Monitor

About the Playwright:

Joanna McClelland Glass is a Tony-nominated Canadian playwright. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, she studied theatre in high school and developed her abilities in community theatre. Shortly after moving to Calgary to work for a radio station, she won a scholarship to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. She then moved to New York, where she began to write. Her plays have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in many North American regional theatres, as well as in England, Ireland, Australia, and Germany.