About the Play:

Tiger's Heart is a full-length drama by Kit Brennan. Portrays the conflicted life of Dr. James Barry, a military doctor in Cape Town and physician to the British Governor of South Africa, who as a young woman had disguised herself as a man so that she could study medicine. Tiger's Heart explores the intersection of private and public life, racial and sexual politics, and dark secrets within a narrow, powerful white society.

Tiger's Heart is based on the true-life story of Dr. James Barry, who was actually a woman disguised as a man in order to practice medicine, which was not an option open to women at the time – a fact not revealed until a quarter-century after her death in 1865 when the British medical journal Lancet began exploring her unusual double life. England, 1815. A young woman disguises herself as a man so that she may be allowed to study medicine. Ten years later "Dr. James Barry," a military doctor and physician to the British Governor of South Africa, faces the contradictions of living behind her mask. Tiger's Heart weaves reality and dreams into an engrossing tapestry that explores the price of colonialism for both perpetrators and victims, the seductiveness of power and the heart of a woman who made her way into a man's world.

Tiger's Heart won out over 77 other plays in Theatre BC's 1994 Canadian National Playwriting Competition and premiered in 1995 at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa. Since then the play has been successfully staged at professional theatres across Canada and has been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 2 women, 2 men

What people say:

"…an intriguing study of power, ambition and sexual identity... Tiger's Heart is one of those enjoyable theatrical experiences that leave one feeling both enriched by new knowledge and hungry for more information about its subject." — Vancouver Sun

About the Playwright:

Kit Brennan was born in Vancouver and grew up in Kingston, Ontario. She currently lives in Montréal, where she co-ordinates the playwriting program for the Concordia University Theatre Department and was the playwright in residence at the Centaur Theatre.