Hot Off the Press: The Colony of
Unrequited Dreams
Reading plays is not only for actors who need monologues for auditions or for producers in search of their next show. It’s for theatre lovers who can’t get out to the theatre, or who’ve heard about a play that’s not being presented in their city, or who want to return to a story they loved watching unfold on stage. It’s for anyone who feels like they don’t have the time to read novels, or who skim over the long descriptions in novels to get to the dialogue. Reading plays is for anyone who likes to read.
Theatre should be for everyone. But not everyone can easily make it out to a play. There is a way, though, to bring theatre into your home: through books. Starting today, we’re going to connect you with all the information you need on the newest plays published through Playwrights Canada Press. Up first is their first play published in 2017, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Robert Chafe.
About the Play
Based on the classic novel by Wayne Johnston, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is a fictionalized portrait of Joseph R. Smallwood, the controversial political figure who ambitiously led Newfoundland into Confederation with Canada, and became its first premier.
Spanning two decades, Smallwood’s story is anchored and propelled by one of Johnston’s most memorable creations: the fictitious Sheilagh Fielding, a caustic newspaper columnist whose own battles with the past and alcohol addiction find full vent and expression in her tireless dogging of Smallwood’s climb to power. At its heart, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is the story of a man whose career is buoyed and sometimes sunk by his unresolved feelings for a woman he never allowed himself to love. It is also the story of Newfoundland’s final years as a country, the end of one cultural and political trajectory and the beginning of another.
About the Playwright
Robert Chafe has worked in theatre, dance, opera, radio, and film. His plays, including Afterimage, Oil and Water, and Tempting Providence, have been across Canada and around the world. Robert has been shortlisted twice for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, and won in 2010 for Afterimage. His first book of short fiction, Two-Man Tent was released in 2016. Robert lives in Newfoundland.
Playwright Robert Chafe
$17.95 | 128 pages
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams was first produced by Artistic Fraud and premiered in February 2015 at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre.
To purchase The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, click here.
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