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Plays

Marie-Lynn Hammond came to playwriting after more than ten years as a singer-songwriter. Six of the songs on her second solo album, Vignettes, specifically address her family—her parents and grandparents. This exploration of her dual heritage (French and English) expanded into Marie-Lynn's first play, De beaux gestes et Beautiful Deeds. The original version is fully bilingual. The version for the French-impaired (like the author of these web pages) is Beautiful Deeds/De beaux gestes. This play was nominated in 1985 for a Dora Mavor Moore Award. Three of Marie-Lynn's plays (marked PUC, below) can be accessed through the Playwrights Union of Canada.

De beaux gestes et Beautiful Deeds
Beautiful Deeds/De beaux gestes

A young woman seeks to resolve her split identity by uncovering the truth about her grandmothers. One is a rich flamboyant WASP, the other a poor, hardworking French Canadian with a survivor's sense of humour.

Selections from the play are available here.

This very personal play is obviously and openly about Marie-Lynn’s own grandmothers and about Marie-Lynn coming to grips with the two solitudes that make up her life. In the play, Marie-Lynn sings eleven songs.

Two Acts, 3 females, 2 musicians; PUC

Nominated in 1985 for a Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Published in Canadian Mosaic II—6 Plays edited by Aviva Ravel, Toronto: Simon & Pierre (2181 Queen Street East, Suite 301, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E5), ISBN: 0-88924-274-7; 1996. This is the mostly English version.

This book is available at Chapters.ca. This book also contains several other enjoyable and moving plays.

The photos at the end of this page relate to this play.

Performance History

Théâtre Français, Toronto/ Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg, 1984/1985;
Dir: Jackie Maxwell, John Van Burek.

Cast:
ELSIE: Diana Belshaw;
MARIE-LYNN: Marie-Lynn Hammond;
CORINNE: Louise Philippe;
Musicians: Claude Allard, Marilyn Lerner.

Blythe Festival, 1985

National Tour, 1987 (including National Arts Center, Ottawa, and Persephone Theatre, Saskatoon)

Théâtre de la quinzième, Vancouver, 1990

Théâtre Lac Brome, 1995


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Mouse

An angry young man with a pet rat meets a mousy young woman on a bus. Written for a ten-minute play festival.

The entire play is available here.

Performance History

Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary, 1990


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White Weddings

White Weddings is the sometimes moving, sometimes blackly humorous story of three sisters who, when their terminally ill mother asks them to help her die, must come to terms with past secrets, what it means to be a family, and, in the oldest sister’s case, her illusions of romantic love.

Two Acts, 4 females; PUC

Performance History

Homefree Theatre, Georgetown, PEI, 1990; Dir: Kathleen Flaherty

Factory Theatre, Toronto, 1992; Dir: Patricia Hamilton

CASA Centre, Edmonton, 2000; Dir: Jennifer Spencer

The Dossetor Centre, Edmonton, Feb 2001; part of Bioethics Week


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Backwards

A young man, Douglas Mulligan, is considered backward and a trouble maker, and only recently identified as severely learning disabled. Douglas’s saving grace is his love of animals and his sense of humour. In an interview in a veterinary clinic for his first real job, Douglas’s story unfolds, by turns tragic and comic, but ultimately hopeful.

One Act, 1 male, 1 female; PUC

Performance History

Homefree Theatre, Georgetown, PEI, 1991; Dir: Nancy Beck


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Where in the World is Porcupine Plain?
(with Anne Hines)

A children's musical

Production nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Performance History

Theatre on the Move, Toronto, 1995; Dir: Chris Kitowski

Over 100 school performances in Ontario.


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Marie-Lynn's Family

Some of these photographs are included
with the LP and CD release of Vignettes
and have also been used in the
promotion of the play
Beautiful Deeds/De beaux gestes.

Marie-Lynn's Mom
Marie-Thérèse Allard
Marie-Lynn's mother
Marie-Lynn's father
Arthur Barnard Hammond
Marie-Lynn's father


Elsie c 1912
Marie-Lynn's grandmother
Elsie as the queen in a play, 1912
Marie-Lynn's mother
Marie-Lynn's mother Marie-Thérèse
at her first communion
circa 1926


Corinne's Family
Marie-Lynn's grandmother Corinne with her second husband, Moise Allard,
and seven of their eight surviving children circa 1930


Elsie and Ted with plane
Marie-Lynn's grandmother Elsie Kohl Hammond
with her companion Ted Dobbin circa 1932


Arthur as a boy
Arthur Barnard Hammond and friend
circa 1923
Arthur as a boy
The original “hand-tinted
photograph of Elsie
in her younger days”


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