Alcuin Society Citation for Excellence in Design

Red Mango is a one-man play about a "single celibate sensualist" who constantly thinks about women - though not for sex, but for sweaty joy and sensual contact on the booming dance floors of Victoria's blues clubs. Charlie is a mid-40's, divorced blues fanatic: he is "between relationships" and addicted to the rapture of losing one's self in a crowded room of sweating, gyrating, heaving bodies, grinding to the rhythms of powerhouse blues. Humorous, poetic, Red Mango played to sold-out houses at Victoria's Belfry Theatre.

Praise for Red Mango:

"Tidler's darkly comic monologue about a lonely guy's sub-Kerouacian, picaresque adventures literally roars to life." (Times Colonist)

"Some of the most energetic, engaging and entertaining theatre seen in Victoria for quite some time." (Monday Magazine)

"Red Mango is Charlie's blues song, a diary of his struggles through his woes and his ecstasies ... The result is more theatre poem than traditional well-made play." (Director John Cooper, in his Director's Notes from the book)

Charles Tidler is a poet, novelist, librettist, spoken jazz artist and, playwright who has written scripts for stage, radio, TV and film. Recent stage plays include Tortoise Boy (Belfry Festival .04) and Rappaccini’s Daughter (Phoenix Theatre, U of Victoria, 2003). Red Mango, a blues play, was a box office and critical hit at the Belfry Theatre in 2000 and has been published by Anvil Press.

Honors include National Radio Awards, a Chalmers Outstanding Play Award, Canada Council and B.C. Arts Council awards, and a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. A novel Going to New Orleans was published to critical acclaim in 2004.

Charles has worked for 20 years as a dramaturge and teacher of creative writing at North Island College, The University of Victoria, Camosun College, Canadian College of Film & Acting, The Banff School of Fine Arts, The Kootenay College of Arts, Playwrights Theatre Centre, Intrepid Theatre, Theatre BC, and The Belfry Theatre.

Charles grew up in Indiana, studying literature and philosophy at Purdue University. He has lived on the west coast of Canada since 1969 and is the father of two sons. He makes his home in Victoria, BC.

Charles Tidler's profile page