Dave Carley is a Canadian playwright, based in Toronto. His work has been produced extensively across Canada and the United States, and around the world. His most recent full length drama, Canadian Rajah, enjoyed a sold-out run in Toronto in 2019 and was remounted in 2020 for both stage and radio podcast. It will have a Malaysian tour in 2024, and has been published by Scirocco Drama.
Although the pandemic caused the cancellation of a few productions, Dave used the time to complete a new play, Hope is a Bird, which is being presented at the Waterworks Festival in Charlottesville VA in May-June 2024. It tells the story of the legendary Ivory-billed Woodpecker and the discovery by two birders that the species may not, in fact, be extinct.
In partnership with playwright Beverley Cooper, Dave also completed an audiobook version of the Lucy Maud Montgomery classic Emily of New Moon, which stars Megan Follows and is available via Audible. A stage version of Emily has been commissioned. Dave is also working on a commission to adapt Farley Mowat's WW II memoir And No Birds Sang.
In recent years, Dave has turned his attention to the short play format and his ten-minute works have been produced extensively in the US and around the world, most recently at the INK Festival in the UK. Dave is curator of the ten-minute play festivals in Port Hope and Cobourg, Ontario.
For a complete listing of Dave's plays - both full length and shorter - please visit his website at www.davecarley.com
Pam Winter
Gary Goddard Agency
416-928-0299
pam@ggagency.ca
Plays
Full length play - 2 acts. Also contains the stand-alone 15 minute monologue, 'My Mother's Luck'.
A young couple flee Germany in the 1930s. The choices they make reverberate through the decades that follow. A View From The Roof is a highly-acclaimed dramatization of the short stories of Helen Weinzweig.
Pictured here: Esther Arbeid and Alex Poch-Goldin from the Toronto premiere production at the Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, 1996.
Full length play - 75 minutes
Esca Brooke should have become the Rajah of Sarawak. Instead, he was exiled to the backwoods of Canada. The bizarre - and true - story of Esca's quest for recognition.
Cover art by Doowah Design for the Scirocco Drama publication, 2022.
Full length play - 90 minutes. Also contains the stand-alone monologue 'Urban Nun'.
Inspired by a Julio Cortazar short story, four strangers become stuck in a traffic jam. As the minutes turn to hours, then turn to weeks, the quartet forms a unique society... until something changes on the horizon.
Pictured here: Jane Burpee from the 2015 Sarasvati Productions presentation, Winnipeg.
Ten minute play.
Two men are guarding the world's most famous statue in an Italian gallery. A young woman stands before the statue and faints. One of the guards catches her but then he, too, faints. And is caught... A play that asks: who catches the catchers? A hit at The Canadian National Ten-Minute Play Festival (2021) and UK's INK Festival (2023).
In photo: Jake Wilkinson, Brandon Nicoletti, JD Leslie from the Canadian National Festival Ten Minute Play Festival production.
15 minute play.
A woman wakes up one morning to find that a billboard has been erected in the lot across from her house. Someone named Bill is proposing marriage. Carole is not against the concept; she just doesn't know which Bill it might be. So she heads off through the gritty city streets to the head office of the billboard... to get answers. Mister In-Between is a 15 minute noir comedy with on stage foley effects... It won the Audience Choice Award at Chicago's Crashbox Festival (2023) and was a hit at the UK INK Festival (2024).
Full length play - In progress.
Their love of birds has led both Katherine and Julius to career disaster. Katherine has been forced to resign as Head of Ornithology at Cornell University. Julius was expelled from the same school and chased out of town by animal rights activists. Now, teacher and student are reunited in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. They are awaiting the arrival of a bird long believed to be extinct – the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. But Katherine and Julius are completely unprepared for their starring roles in what will be the greatest moment in the history of birding.
10-12 minutes
Poor Jim. He's on a date from hell, locked out of his one night stand's apartment, without decent raiment. Actually, any raimant at all. Now he must rely on the kindness of strangers - but will the police arrive first? Following initial 2014 productions in Madison, Wisconsin and San Francisco, Jim At My Door has been produced by Buffalo United Artists at that city's Alleyway Theatre, March, 2015, as well as in other North American cities. Most recently, hapless Jim appeared at the 2024 INK Festival in the UK.
Photo: Will Antenbring and Jack Gogarty from the 2024 INK Festival Production, UK. Photo by Martin Smith of Origin8Photography.com
Full length play - about 75 minutes
Civil liberties - and freedom of speech, in particular - are tested over five decades in a small city. Ordinary people are faced to take extraordinary stands.
Graphic by Mile Murtanovski for the 2015 Toronto Fringe production.
Full length play - 75-90 minutes, depending on how many characters used.
A young man has been sentenced to death; the final hours of his life are seen through the eyes of those he loves - and those who must administer the death penalty.
Pictured here: Nick Lingnofski, Taylor Martin Moss and Emily Bach from the 2014 production in Columbus, Ohio. Katherine Burkman dir.