fiction.wikisort.org - Writer

Shirley Barrie (1945-2018) was a Canadian writer. She was the co-founder of the Wakefield Tricycle Company and Tricycle Theatre. Her plays include Straight Stitching, Carrying the Calf, and Tripping Through Time.

Shirley Barrie
Born	Shirley Grace Barrie (1945-09-30)September 30, 1945 Tillsonburg, Ontario
Died	April 15, 2018(2018-04-15) (aged 72) Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto
Website
www.shirleybarrie.ca

Early life and education

Barrie was born on September 30 in 1945 in Tillsonburg, Ontario.[1][2] She was a member of the University Alumnae Dramatic Club at the University of Toronto.[3] Barrie attended Western University in London, Ontario and Carleton University in Ottawa.[1] While at Carleton, Barrie co-founded a college theatre group called Sock 'n' Buskin with Ken Chubb, who she would later marry.[4]

Career

In 1972, Barrie co-founded the Wakefield Tricycle Company in London, England with husband Ken Chubb.[2][4] They named the company in reference to medieval mystery plays and a pub in King's Cross. In 1980, the two set up the Tricycle Theatre, dropping Wakefield from the name, at Kilburn High Road.[5][6] Until 1984, Barrie was an associate director of Tricycle Theatre.[7]

After returning to Toronto, Barrie and Lib Spry founded Straight Stitching Productions in 1989.[2] Straight Stitching Productions produced Barrie's play Straight Stitching, about immigrant women working in the garment industry. The show featured songs by Arlene Mantle.[8] Straight Stitching went on to become a runner-up for the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award.[9] Straight Stitching Productions later produced Carrying the Calf, a play for children addressing violence against women from the perspective of young women attending a self-defense class.[2] Barrie was inspired to write the play after reading a Globe and Mail article that claimed that, "81% of Canadian female university students admit to having experienced psychological, sexual or physical abuse on a date".[10] Carrying the Calf won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding play for young audiences in 1992.[11]

Working with the Workman Theatre Project, a theatre company that integrates people with mental illness, Barrie created the play Tripping Through Time in 1993. In the show, audiences are immersed in a mental asylum and given diagnoses at random. The play dramatizes experiences at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre from 1850 to the present.[12]

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result	Ref.
1990	Floyd S. Chalmers Award	n/a	Straight Stitching	Nominated	[9]
1992	Dora Mavor Moore Awards	Outstanding play for young audiences (small theatre)	Carrying the Calf	Won	[11]
2015	NOW Magazine’s People's Choice Awards	Best Toronto Playwright	n/a	Nominated	[7]
2015	Tom Hendry Awards	PGC Lifetime Award	n/a	Won	[13]

Works

Plays:

• The Adventures of Super Granny and the Kid[2]
• Beautiful Lady, Tell Me...
• Brigid Bonfast: Space Scientist
• Choices
• The Girl in the Flower Basket
• In the Midst of Death
• Topsy Turvy[2]
• Straight Stitching[9]
• Shusha And The Story Snatcher[14]
• Riders Of The Sea[14]
• Jack Sheppard's Back[14]
• Carrying the Calf[15][10]
• What if...?[2]
• Two Tonic[16]
• The Pear is Ripe[17]
• Revelation[18]
• Reflections
• Riders of the Sea
• Sonjo & the Thundergod
• Hansel and Gretel[2]
• Beautiful Lady, Tell Me...[2]
• Tripping Through Time[12]
• Measure Of The World[19]
• Queen Marie[20]
• I Am Marguerite[21]
• Marguerite de Roberval

As editor:

• Prepare to Embark: Six Theatrical Voyages for Young Adults[22]

Personal life

Barrie was married to Ken Chubb. The two returned from London to live in Canada in 1985.[23] They had three children: Alexis, Robin, and Yiwen. Barrie died at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto on April 15, 2018.[1]

References

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