Michael Cook (playwright)
Michael Cook was an English-born Canadian professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland and playwright known for his plays set in Newfoundland.
Early life
Cook was born in Fulham, London, England to Anglo-Irish parents. He attended boarding schools until age fifteen and joined the British Army in 1949. He served for twelve years, mostly in Asia, including Japan. He married Muriel Horner in 1951 and had eight children. Between 1962 and 1966, he attended the University of Nottingham, earning teaching qualifications.Career
After graduating in 1966, Cook left his family and moved to Newfoundland to work as a schoolteacher. In 1967, he began his career at Memorial University of Newfoundland, first as a drama specialist with the MUN Extension Service and later becoming an associate professor in the English department. Soon after arriving in Newfoundland, he wrote scripts for several radio dramas which were produced in St. John's. He also reviewed plays and wrote articles about the importance of theatre in the St. John's Evening Telegram and the Canadian Theatrical Review.In 1970, Cook formed the amateur theatre company The Open Group with Clyde Rose and Richard Buehler and began to write plays for this group. He wrote a number of plays set in Newfoundland, beginning with Tiln, written in 1971. His best-known works are Jacob's Wake and The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance, in which Newfoundland provides a sometimes realistic and sometimes symbolic backdrop for his poetic rendering of lives in continual conflict with natural elements. Many of Cook's plays include dialogue written in Newfoundland English.
In the mid-1970s, Cook began to spend time on Random Island and Fogo Island, marrying Madonna Decker in 1973. In 1977, he was playwright-in-residence in the Banff Playwrights Lab at the Banff [Centre for Arts and Creativity|Banff Centre for the Arts]. From 1982, they lived in Stratford, Ontario, where he was playwright-in-residence in 1987. He would often spend his summers on Random Island.
In 1994, while making his way to his summer home on Random Island after visiting St. John's to see a staging of The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance, Cook became ill and died back in St. John's.
His plays have been performed throughout North America, as well Poland, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Personal life
Cook married three times, and fathered fourteen children, including actor Sebastian Spence by his second wife, Janis Spence, to whom he was married 1967–73.Works
Stage plays
The J. Alfred Prufrock Hour Tiln Colour the Flesh the Colour of Dust The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance Jacob's Wake Quiller The Fisherman's Revenge Therese's Creed. Title also variously spelled as "Terese" and "Theresa".Not as a Dream On the Rim of the Curve The Gayden Chronicles The Apocalypse Sonata The End of the Road. Earlier drafts were titled All the Funny People Are Dead and The Deserts of Bohemia.- ''The Great Harvest Excursion''
Compilations
Quiller / Tiln: Two One-Act Plays Tiln & Other Plays. Includes Tiln, Quiller and Therese's Creed.Three Plays. Includes The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance; On the Rim of the Curve; and Therese's Creed.Radio plays
No Man Can Serve Two Masters, first broadcast April 8, 1966How to Catch a Pirate, first broadcast June 8, 1966A Walk in the Rain, first broadcast January 18, 1967Or the Wheel Broken, first broadcast June 18, 1967A Time for Doors, first broadcast March 13, 1968The Truck, first broadcast August 18, 1968The Concubine, first broadcast February 16, 1969To Inhabit the Earth Is Not Enough, first broadcast September 21, 1969The Ballad of Patrick Docker, first broadcast November 25, 1970Journey into the Unknown, 1970There's a Seal in the Bottom of the Garden, first broadcast June 19, 1971Love Is a Walnut, first broadcast August 20, 1972Apostles for the Burning, first broadcast December 4, 1973Travels with Aunt Jane, 12 episodes broadcast weekly starting July 10, 1974 starring Jane MallettKnight of Sorrow, Lady of Darkness, first broadcast August 10, 1976The Producer, the Director, 1976Ireland's Eye, first broadcast April 19, 1977The Gentleman Amateur, 1977The Hunter, 1981All a Pack o' Lies, 1981The Terrible Journey of Frederick Dunglass, first broadcast January 22, 1982The Preacher, first broadcast December 12, 1982The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, first broadcast June 3, 1984This Damned Inheritance, first broadcast November 11, 1984The Bailiff and the Women, first broadcast November 16, 1984The Ocean Ranger, first broadcast March 31, 1985The Saddest Barn Dance Ever Held, first broadcast April 28, 1985The Hanging Judge, first broadcast October 27, 1985The Moribundian Memorandum, 1986Other
In Search of Confederation, 1971, television play- "The Island of Fire: Chapter One of a Novel in Progress". Aurora: New Canadian Writinq 1980. Ed. Morris Wolfe. Toronto: Doubleday, 1980, pp. 33–48.