As an actor, Susan Coyne has played leading roles at the Stratford and Shaw festivals and at major regional theatres across Canada. As a writer, her previous works include a new version of Chekhov's Platonov (with Laszlo Marton); a childhood memoir titled Kingfisher Days, and a stage version of Kingfisher Days that premiered in Toronto in 2003. She is a founding member of Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre.

This audio edition of Kingfisher Days is whimsically narrated by the author, Susan Coyne, who delicately transforms herself into a quiet and serious five-year-old without a trace of the forced childlikeness one expects from adults playing children. Susan Coyne has played leading roles at theatres throughout Canada and abroad. She is a founding member of Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre, for whom she co-adapted Anton Chekhov's Platonov (with László Marton). She also adapted Kingfisher Days into a stage play, which was first produced at Tarragon Theatre in February and March 2003.

Susan Coyne's profile page

Anton Chekhov
Born in 1860, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Chekhov’s play The Seagull, translated by David French, is available from Talonbooks.

David French
Born in Coley’s Point, Newfoundland, David French was one of Canada’s best-known and most critically acclaimed playwrights. His work received many major awards, and French was one of the first inductees into the Newfoundland Arts Hall of Honour.

Among his best-loved works are the semi-autobiographical Mercer plays: Salt-Water Moon; 1949; Leaving Home, recently named one of Canada’s 100 Most Influential Books (Literary Review of Canada) and one of the 1,000 Most Essential Plays in the English Language (Oxford Dictionary of Theatre); Of the Fields, Lately and Soldier’s Heart. The Mercer plays have received hundreds of productions across North America, including a Broadway production of Of the Fields, Lately. This quintet of plays about a Newfoundland family has also touched audiences in Europe, South America and Australia. In addition, French produced skillful adaptations of Alexander Ostrovsky’s The Forest, Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and August Strindberg’s Miss Julie.

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