by Norm Foster
April 28 to May 20, 2017
Director: Greg Nowlan
(production photos by Dave Fitzpatrick)
OUR AMAZING CAST (click on the composite photo to see more)
A weekend on a lake teeming with fish and eligible women – what’s not to like for brothers Owen and Lee Melville? Find out in The Melville Boys, a poignant comedy by the author of Maggie’s Getting Married.
What the critics say about The Melville Boys…
“The Melville Boys effortlessly weaves the comic and tragic.”
~ Variety
“Foster declines to settle for the obvious, giving us instead, a story that has the uncertainties and the complexity of real life.”
~ London Free Press
“It drops you to your knees with laughter with one hand, then quietly breaks your heart with the other.”
~ Stratford Beacon Herald
“The Melville Boys makes you think. It’s a play about the rest of your life.”
~ Lancaster Sunday News
“The packed house roared with laughter and were moved to tears in the same play.”
~ Huron Expositor
“If you miss it, it will be your great loss.”
~ Ottawa Citizen
About Norm Foster, playwright. . . .
Norm Foster’s plays receive an average of one hundred and fifty productions annually making him the most produced playwright in the history of Canada.
Born in Newmarket and raised in Toronto, Norm attended West Hill Collegiate Institute and then went on to study Radio & Television Arts. A 25-year career in radio took him from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg to Kingston and finally to Fredericton, New Brunswick. It was there in 1980 that Norm acted in his first play: the part of Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey.
Foster fell in love with the theatre right then and there, and two years later he wrote his first professionally produced play, Sinners, followed by The Melville Boys. The latter would go on to be produced across Canada and in the United States, including a well-received run off-Broadway in New York. It would become Foster’s signature play, and the one which would bring his name to the forefront of Canadian theatre. Since then, Norm Foster has produced an astonishing output of work: over fifty plays in all.
Foster’s plays are known mainly for their comedic qualities, but they are not without their serious moments as well. When asked to try and pin down a common theme that runs through his plays, Foster says, “I think for the most part, they’re about ordinary people just trying to get by in life. I never set out with a monumental purpose in mind. I’m not trying to teach an audience a lesson or pass along some profound message, because I don’t think I’m qualified. What I am trying to do is make them feel a little better about this world, and that’s not easy these days.”
NOTE: On December 30, 2016, Norm Foster was named a member of the Order of Canada.
Village Players likes Norm Foster plays. We’ve done:
2015 Maggie’s Getting Married
2011 The Long Weekend
2006 Ned Durango Comes to Big Oak
2003 My Darling Judith
2001 Office Hours
1996 The Affections of May
1992 Sinners
1990 The Melville Boys
About director Greg Nowlan. . . .
Greg, a native New Brunswicker, has had an affinity for Foster’s plays since at least 1992 when he played Reverend Lloyd in Foster’s first play Sinners on the Village Playhouse stage. Greg later directed Sinners (and Foster’s Bedtime Stories) in Scarborough, but never in the west end until now. He has, however, directed the following plays for Village Players: Marion Bridge, Key for Two, Salt-Water Moon, Alone Together, True West, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Rumors, Lettice and Lovage, and No Exit. His most recent acting role in our theatre was Sidney Bruhl in Village Players’ Deathtrap in 2006.
Village Players 