About the Play:

HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

Double Bill: Still Desire You & Fire contains two full-length comedies by Paul Ledoux and David Young. Still Desire You explores the slippery slope of a fan's delusions and, in the process, indicts the star-making machinery behind our communal obsession with celebrity. Fire draws on the relationship of 1950s and 1960s rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis and his real-life cousin, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. These two plays were generated out of the playwrights' interest in the interpenetrating relationships between carnal desire, spiritual love, media, and popular music.

Still Desire You (a fresh adaptation of I Love You, Anne Murray, first produced in 1984 and later remounted as Love is Strange) is inspired by the story of Charles Keiling, the Canadian farmer who fell in love with Anne Murray. The play tells the story of a man so infatuated with a pop superstar that he violates the restraining order she has against him and ends up facing her in a courtroom, where he tries to justify his aberrant behaviour. For some fans, innocent fantasies about their connection to the performer behind the song can become real and dangerous obsessions. Such is the story of David Stuart, a starstruck fan obsessed by singing star Rose McKay. This fundamentally decent man on trial for "the crime of loving a girl" who happens to be a pop icon. Facing commitment in a prison for the criminally insane, David defends himself in court, and in the process challenges both the nature of media stardom and the ability of the legal system to deal with the mentally ill. Still Desire You explores the nature of obsessive love, the role of the media and stardom in our society. Still Desire You was first produced in 1984 by Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay, Ontario. (Cast: 2 female, 5 male)

Fire explores the extraordinary relationship between Pentecostal Christianity, the birth of rock and roll, and the rise of right-wing fundamentalism as a force in American politics. Inspired by the true-life relationship between evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, who learned how to play on the same piano, Fire traces the rise and fall of Cale and Herschel, the sons of a Southern preacher. In the 1950s Cale becomes a rock and roll star but, convinced he is damned for playing "the devil's music," embarks on a self-destructive rampage that nearly destroys him. By the 1980s Herschel has become a famous televangelist and is drawn into a dangerous mix of faith and right-wing politics. Caught between the two brothers is the woman who loves them both, Herschel's wife, Molly. A play about searching for salvation with your head, your heart, and your groin. Fire was first produced in 1985 by Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay, Ontario and has subsequently played across Canada many times. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

About the Playwright:

Paul Ledoux is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter. He was born and raised in Halifax, where he studied at Dalhousie University and The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He is one of the most produced creators of musical theatre in Canada and has had more than 35 plays produced in Canada and abroad. He has worked as an artistic director, dramaturg, director, and producer. He has written extensively for film and television.

David S. Young is a Canadian playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He has written extensively for film and television, beginning with Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock. He is the author of seven plays, two novels and several screenplays and teleplays. Two of his plays, Inexpressible Island and Glenn, have been nominated for multiple Canadian drama awards.