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Habitat
Habitat
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Author: Judith Thompson Introduction by: Iris Turcott Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press (cover image may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 80 Pub. Date: 2001 ISBN-10: 0887546153 ISBN-13: 9780887546150 Cast Size: 2 female, 3 male
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About the Play:
Habitat has become a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.
Habitat is a full-length drama by Judith Thompson. A
group home for troubled teenagers is set up in the middle of a very
wealthy suburb in Toronto, causing the neighbourhood's homeowners
lots of worry about rising crime rates and falling property values.
The issues it presents are still timely as the rich and the
underprivileged engage in a battle to win custody of this precious
property, or territory, or habitat.
Habitat concerns wealthy widow and daughter who live on an
idyllic community – idyllic, that is, until a group home for
troubled adolescents is opened on their street. Janet and her mother
Margaret both live on Mapleview Lanes – the perfect neighbourhood
with the perfect neighbours, until Lewis Chance, an activist and
advocate for children, buys a house on their street to open a
family-like group home for neglected teens. New resident Raine, a
formerly well-to-do girl who's unable to respond emotionally when her
mother dies, finds herself at this group home, in a community that
has little tolerance for its troubled residents. The ensuing battle –
over whether the group home stays or not – allows Raine to
re-awaken her emotions through rage, and a political will she didn't
know existed in her. Habitat gives a new spin to the old
saying "charity begins at home."
Habitat was first produced in Canada in 2001 at CanStage in
Toronto, in England at the Manchester Exchange in 2002, and in the
United States in 2003, in an Off-Broadway production by Epic Theatre
Ensemble. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has be mounted by professional
theatres across Canada, at
Los Angeles
Theatre Center (LATC), and by colleges and community theatres.
Cast: 2 female, 3 male
What people say:
"…in this country, a
playwright as good as Judith Thompson is a
miracle." — The Globe and Mail
"For every blemish Thompson
finds, there's an equal amount of hope; every good deed is checkered
with a near-despicable one; every morally upstanding speech is met
with a choked-out dark desire." — Vue Weekly
"...it's about family,
especially the primal, complex relationships between mothers and
children – lifelong dances of adoration, criticism, contempt,
disappointment, guilt, care-giving and misunderstanding." —
Winnipeg Free Press
About the Playwright:
Judith Thompson, OC
is a highly esteemed Canadian playwright and educator. She has twice
won the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama for White Biting
Dog and The Other Side of the Dark. Other often-produced works
include Sled, The Crackwalker, I Am Yours, Lion in the Streets and
many more. In 2006 she was invested as an Officer in the Order of
Canada, and in 2008 she became the first Canadian to be awarded the
prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honouring
the best English-language women writers worldwide for
her play Palace of the End.
She is currently a professor at the University of Guelph for the
School of English and Theatre Studies teaching courses in acting and
playwriting.
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Edited by Judith Thompson
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