Characters: 3M/3F. A side-splitting look at a family learning to love again. On a winter night in a drafty farmhouse a baby is about to arrive. But modern medicine meets midwifery head on in a torrent of family feuding. As tensions rise between three dysfunctional generations, so does the laughter. It takes a baby to to heal the rift in this funny, heart-warming story of forgiveness and hope. Playwright David S. Craig shows us how the human heart sometimes takes the longest way home.
HOW TO GET A COPY
This play is available from PLAYWRIGHTS CANADA PRESS.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Some of us get married, some of us have children, but we all, through no fault of our own, have families. We have them and we either love them or cope with them or move to Vancouver. Personally, I think flight is fruitless. My mother, although passed on, is with me 24/7. She sits on my left shoulder. If allowed, she comments on everything I do. Right now, as I write these words, she’s telling me not to be “smart”. Being “smart” is akin to “showing off” which is right next to being “boastful” which is “rude”. She didn’t actually say there was a place in hell for “rude people” (we were United Church after all) but I got that impression. As proof that parents have no influence on their children, I become a professional actor (i.e. a professional show off). To my relief, she was concerned but endlessly supportive. The family you will see tonight isn’t mine but it is one I recognize very deeply and I hope you will too. In the writing I have loved them, coped with them and practically raised two children waiting for them to find a place on the stage. I wish my Mother could see them. She would have led the laughter. She’d have been that proud.
– David S. Craig
Jerry Franken in Theatre Aquarius’ production of Having Hope at Home
PRODUCTION HISTORY
Blyth Festival, Blyth, Ontario – Premiere – 2003
Lighthouse Festival, Port Dover, Ontario – 2004
1000 Island Playhouse, Gananoque, Ontario – 2004
Persephone Theatre, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – 2005
Red Barn Theatre, Jackson’s Point, Ontario – 2005
Magnus Theatre, Thunder Bay, Ontario – 2006
Western Theatre Canada, Kamloops, British Columbia – 2007
The Gateway Theatre, Richmond, British Columbia – 2007
The Prairie Theatre Exchange, Winnipeg, Manitoba – 2008
Upper Canada Playhouse, Morrisburg, Ontario – 2008
Chemianus Theatre Festival, Chemainus, British Columbia – 2008
Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton, Ontario – 2009
Hudson Village Theatre, Hudson, Quebec – 2009
The Globe Theatre, Regina – 2011
Victoria Playhouse, Petrolia, Ontario – 2011
German Productions
Theater fur Niedersachsen Hildesheim Hannover – 2009
Massbach, Frankisches Theater – 2011
Theater Chambinzky Wurzburg – 2007
Upcoming Productions:
Port Stanley Summer Festival – 2012
Blyth Festival (10th Anniversary Production) – 2012
Jerry Franken, Maev Beaty, Robyn Craig, James Dallas Smith, Michael Hanrahan, and Jane Spidell in Theatre Aquarius’ production of Having Hope at Home