About the Play:

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

Seven Hours to Sundown is a full-length drama by George Ryga. The play's major action concerns a former church that various forces within a small town would like to have each for its own purposes. The conflicts build, and people are forced into a showdown. Seven Hours to Sundown is a dark comedy about political survival and the nature of power in small communities.

Seven Hours to Sundown is set in Woodlands, a small town anywhere in Western Canada. The play revolves around the future of an old town church. On one side is the town's establishment, represented by the Mayor and his developer alderman ally. On the other side are the progressives: a young investigative reporter, the mayor's idealistic daughter, and her boyfriend, a craftsman with liberal politics. As the people of the town join one side or the other, battle lines are drawn, and the struggle becomes neighbour against neighbour in a town where rivalries go back for generations. Designated to be adapted for specific audiences.

Seven Hours to Sundown premiered in 1976 at the Studio Theatre on the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton and later toured Alberta and the Yukon before moving to Toronto and Vancouver.

Cast: 2 female, 4 male

About the Playwright:

George Ryga (1932-1987) was one of Canada's most important playwrights, with a broad international reputation. Largely self-taught, he showed early promise when he won a writing scholarship to the Banff School of the Arts. He published his first book of poems in his late teens and earned a living first with hard labour and later in radio broadcasting. In 1967, Ryga soared to national fame with The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, which has since evolved into a modern classic. "More than any other writer," said theatre director John Juliani, "George Ryga was responsible for first bringing the contemporary age to the Canadian stage." He will always be remembered and cherished as one of Canada's most prolific and powerful writers.