Modern Canadian Plays is the core text for university-level Canadian drama courses around the world. Now in its fifth edition, with the previous edition published in 2002, the two-volume Modern Canadian Plays drama series anthologizes major Canadian plays written and performed since 1967. The second volume presents a range of exciting Canadian plays from the late 1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first ­century. These plays respond directly or indirectly to the events of our time; work effectively on the stage, on the page, and in the classroom; and are contextualized with accompanying history, biography, and criticism.

Polygraph (1988) by Robert Lepage and Marie Brassard
7 Stories (1989) by Morris Panych
Never Swim Alone (1991) by Daniel MacIvor
The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum (1995) by Wendy Lill
Counter Offence (1996) by Rahul Varma
Problem Child (1997) by George F. Walker
Harlem Duet (1997) by Djanet Sears
Street of Blood (1998) by Ronnie Burkett
The Shape of a Girl (2001) by Joan MacLeod
Tempting Providence (2002) by Robert Chafe
Scorched (2003) by Wajdi Mouawad
The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil (2005) by Marcus Youssef, Guillermo Verdecchia, and Camyar Chai
Age of Arousal (2007) by Linda Griffiths
BIOBOXES: Artifacting Human Experience (2007) by Theatre Replacement
The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story (2010) by Marie Clements
Kim’s Convenience (2011) by Ins Choi

Jerry Wasserman's profile page

Professor of English and theatre at the University of British Columbia, Jerry Wasserman has written and lectured widely on Canadian drama. His books include Spectacle of Empire: Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France, Theatre and AutoBiography (with Sherrill Grace), and Twenty Years at Play, all published by Talonbooks. He has more than two hundred professional acting credits on stage and screen, and has reviewed more than fifteen hundred plays for CBC Radio, the Province newspaper, and his website, Vancouverplays.com. Wasserman has received the Killam Teaching Prize (1998), the Dorothy Somerset Award (2005), and the Sam Payne Award (2012), honouring a lifetime of achievement in the performing arts.

“Unquestionably, Jerry Wasserman and Talonbooks deserve praise for publishing an anthology that brings together in such a reader-friendly format … the most important plays of the Canadian dramatic repertory.”
– Andre Loiselle, Theatre Research in Canada

Praise for Jerry Wasserman’s Modern Canadian Plays, Fourth Edition:
“The anthology of choice for most courses ... both Jerry Wasserman and Talonbooks continue to expand, update, and broaden the representational range of the standard teaching anthology in the field. One can only look forward to the fifth edition, and all those to follow.”
– Ric Knowles, Canadian Literature