About the Play:

Kindness received the 2009 AATE Distinguished Play Award

Kindness is a one-act dramatic comedy by Dennis Foon. Eleven-year-old Damon, Keegan, and Tessa are struggling with problems familiar to many of today's pre-teens: bullying, poverty, loss of family members, and global disasters. A love of animals eventually emerges as a common thread that links the three former adversaries.

Kindness offers an unforgettable lesson in compassion and listening to one another. Heartwarming and humorous, Kindness sensitively captures the reality of children's feelings as it tells the story of three kids, Tessa, Damon and Keegan, as they navigate the small and large catastrophes in their lives. They share the same band class and the same passion: their pets. When Tessa loses her beloved dog Joey, the event challenges and transforms not only the three children, but the adults in their lives as well. Dennis Foon spent a week asking questions, but mostly listening, to Grades 5 and 6 students at five Winnipeg schools about what mattered to them. He discovered the importance to children of giving and receiving, compassion, generosity and unconditional love, and these responses provided the foundation for Kindness. Dennis Foon says "We discussed their families and friends, their loves, their hates, their fears, the empty spaces in their hearts. What struck me was that no matter what their difficulties – and some were huge – many of these kids had enormous compassion for each other and the world around them. Some showed it by supporting a friend in need, others had begun fundraising efforts for worthy causes. These kids, barely alive a dozen years, got me thinking about those empty spaces – and how all of us need to find ways to fill them." The roles of the seventeen characters can be shared among fewer actors (the first production was staged with just four actors).

Kindness premiered in 2007 at Manitoba Theatre for Young People in Winnipeg. Since then it has been performed in middle schools and theatres for young audiences.

Cast: 4 to 17 actors (gender flexible)

What people say:

"Foon's three preteen protagonists grapple with terrible loss, death, bullying, pathological lying, and distressing global events... learn[ing] that with empathy they can change their world." — Winnipeg Free Press

"Kindness was a very good play to discuss characterization with teenage students. The cast spent a lot of time making characters believable and relating their situations to lives of students in their school. This play produced great discussion and rapport among its actors." — Geri Pottinger, Cardston High School, Cardston, Alberta

About the Playwright:

Dennis Foon was born in Detroit, Michigan but has lived the majority of his life in Vancouver, B.C. He has degrees from the Universities of Michigan and British Columbia. Founding Artistic Director of Green Thumb Theatre, he has written more than 20 award-winning plays produced in Canada and internationally for adults and young people. Upon leaving Green Thumb in 1988, he began writing screenplays and novels, which now occupy most of his time.