About the Play:

The Impromptu of Outremont has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Female Scenes.

The Impromptu of Outremont (English version of L'impromptu d'Outremont) is a full-length comedy by Michel Tremblay. One sister's birthday party becomes one of the rare occasions where four sisters from one of Montréal's "better" French-speaking districts must spend the evening together. Conflict is inevitable and their many differences and disappointments, with each other and themselves, are forced out into the open.

The Impromptu of Outremont concerns the reunion of four upper-class French-speaking Montreal sisters over tea and cake. Each year, the Beaugrand sisters meet for their sister Yvette's birthday party – and to have a little "impromptu" – at which they lash out at each other's personal failures and at the failure of society to support them in their opinions about the world. The four sisters represent the French-Canadian intelligentsia of the fifties, whose interest in art, music, dance and literature is an adopted pose, not their life's blood. Only one of the Beaugrand sisters, Lorraine, has escaped her fate, running off with the Italian gardener to start a family in St. Leonard. The others remain in Outremont, trapped by time; by the choices they have not dared to make; by the position that society has foisted upon them – a position they have accepted, not fought for.

The Impromptu of Outremont premiered in 1980 at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver, not long after its French-language premiere. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 1 male

What people say:

"Michel Tremblay's L'impromptu d'Outremont is a four-part etude on the subject of culture that explodes – mostly in laughter – like atoms in a nuclear reactor." The Gazette (Montréal)

About the Playwright:

Michel Tremblay has been a dominant figure of Québec's theatre scene since the end of the 1960s. One of the most produced and the most prominent playwrights in the history of Canadian theatre, he has received countless prestigious honours and accolades. His dramatic, literary and autobiographical works have long enjoyed remarkable international popularity, including translations of his plays that have achieved huge success in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.