High Sticking, a collection of four short plays about hockey, explores the Canadian passion for the sport… as well as some of our other national obsessions! In Coach Kingston Tells It Like It Is, the coach educates a minor hockey dad on the importance of anger, hatred, loathing, giving 115% and the immortal soul. Eleanor, St. Etheldrum’s own 14-year-old field hockey goon, ruminates on the finer points of the game from her vantage point in the penalty box. In Life Without Gretzky, an Edmonton performance artist mourns The Great One’s retirement. And Table Top features the first-ever table-top hockey brawl, as an Anglophone Leafs fan, a Francophone Habs fan, and an American Rangers fan discover many points of contention… along with an enduring love for the “Big Board.”
About the Author
Mark Brownell is a Toronto-based playwright, actor, librettist, and educator. Mark’s plays include Monsieur d’Eon Is a Woman (which was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award,) High Sticking, Medici Slot Machine (nominated for the Dora Mavor Moore Outstanding New Play Award,) War of the Clowns, Clique Claque, The Barbecue King (with Steve Thomas,) The Martha Stewart Project, and an adaptation of Three Men in a Boat. The opera Iron Road (libretto by Brownell, music by Chan Ka Nin,) won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Musical. He currently teaches at George Brown College, The Toronto Film School, and the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. He is also Co-Artistic Director of the Pea Green Theatre Group with his wife and partner Sue Miner, with whom he wrote Break A Leg! An Actors Guide to Theatrical Practices, Phrases, and Superstitions.
