• Age: 17
• Grade: 12

This comedy by the author of Toronto at Dreamer's Rock and Education Is Our Right is about love, family, and what to do with too much beer. Set on a reserve, it follows the plight of Martha, a church-going, teetotaling woman who finds herself stuck with 143 cases of beer after a church fundraiser fails. She decides to bootleg the beer, to the horror of her son Andrew, nicknamed Blue, who is a special constable on the reserve.

Meanwhile, Andrew has fallen for a young woman he thinks is his cousin, and his sister Marianne is bored with her Indian Yuppie" husband and finds herself attracted to a handsome dancer at the powwow.

The pace is fast and vigorous in this romantic situation comedy.

An Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations in Ontario, Drew Hayden Taylor has worn many hats in his literary career, from performing stand-up comedy at the Kennedy Center to being Artistic Director of Canada's premiere Native theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts.

He has been an award-winning playwright, a journalist/columnist, short-story writer, novelist, television scriptwriter, and has worked on over 17 documentaries exploring the Native experience. Drew has managed to bridge the gap between cultures by tickling the funny bone."

Ojibway writer Drew Hayden Taylor is from the Curve Lake Reserve in Ontario. Hailed by the Montreal Gazette as one of Canada’s leading Native dramatists, he writes for the screen as well as the stage and contributes regularly to North American Native periodicals and national NEWSpapers. His plays have garnered many prestigious awards, and his beguiling and perceptive storytelling style has enthralled audiences in Canada, the United States and Germany. His 1998 play Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth has been anthologized in Seventh Generation: An Anthology of Native American Plays, published by the Theatre Communications Group. Although based in Toronto, Taylor has travelled extensively throughout North America, honouring requests to read from his work and to attend arts festivals, workshops and productions of his plays. He was also invited to Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute in California, where he taught a series of seminars on the depiction of Native characters in fiction, drama and film. One of his most established bodies of work includes what he calls the Blues Quartet, an ongoing, outrageous and often farcical examination of Native and non-Native stereotypes.

Drew Hayden Taylor's profile page

"It's sole purpose is to make us laugh and it succeeds... It should be no surprise that this is a comedy of character and situations. Herein lies the strength of Taylor's writing. He has vividly created some of the characters. We know from the first moment that we are going to be entertained. Taylor has invited us into his home an offered us a glimpse of Reserve life through a uniquely comic eye."
— The Canadian Journal of Native Studies.

The Bootlegger Blues

This dramatic comedy is about love, lust, family and illegal alcohol. Set on a reserve, it follows Martha, a pillar of the community, who has been unable to sell 143 cases of beer for a church fundraiser. She decides to bootleg the beer, to the dismay of her son Andrew, nicknamed Blue, the reserve’s special constable. Meanwhile, Andrew has fallen for a young woman he thinks is his cousin. His sister, Marianne, is bored with her “Indian Yuppie” husband and finds herself attracted to a handsome powwow dancer. The pace is rapid, energetic and vigorous in this romantic situation comedy filled with raw humour, puns and irony.

Taylor, an Ojibway from Ontario, has a successful career as a writer for stage and screen, has directed documentary films, and has written several books, many plays and numerous articles.

Caution: Includes some swearing, strong vulgarity and references to sexual liaisons.