CHRISTOPHER CANAAN
WORKS
Vol 1: The New Hope Trilogy
After almost 35 years in the entertainment industry, I was stuck on the 405 - a twelve-lane parking lot - and asked myself, “What in the hell am I doing here?” Between the traffic, the fires, the drought, and the impending earthquake (the “big one”) Hollywood no longer had the allure it once held. To this we add that everyone who had ever hired me had either retired, died, or ended up in the witness protection program; I had even more incentive to bolt. Plus, my three adult kids were all on the East Coast and I missed the hell out of them.
So, one fine morning, I packed up and following the advice of Horace Greely, “Head East, old man,” I set off for a great adventure. I had no idea where I was going.
Through an amazing series of events, I ended up in New Hope, PA. It was love at first sight, and settled in. New Hope is an artistic town with a lot of theater, including the renowned Bucks County Playhouse. I met some very talented people and returned to my first love: theater. For the next eight years I wrote my heart out and had a wonderful time workshopping my plays and seeing several of them produced. I even rediscovered my acting chops.
In this first volume I celebrate my time in New Hope and pay homage to the people and place that stirred my imagination and gave me new vitality and direction, for which I will remain eternally grateful.
With a degree in English lit (Ph.D., Yale ‘62), decades of acting and directing in community theater in and around Philadelphia, and finally a play of my own produced last year to much acclaim, my standards for good theater have over the years gotten pretty demanding.
Which is why I was so delightfully surprised this past Sunday – astounded, actually – by a play at Actors’ NET in Morrisville called “Reckonings in New Hope.” It’s by prolific, Emmy-winning, movie and TV writer named Christopher Canaan…
…With some of the sharpest and funniest dialogue I have heard on stage – the set is a handsome hotel suite they’ve rented – they confess the delights and pains of their adolescence, plumb their career turns with insults and compassion, and prepare with sore regret and revived hopes to encounter over the weekend the heartthrobs who back then and afterwards fatefully got away. A fast-paced yet heartfelt mix of wit and emotion, it is consistently rewarding.
Mort Paterson
NEW HOPE TRILOGY
Reckonings on the River
Three best friends from high school -- Hap, Jack and Chuck -- gather for their 50th high school reunion in New Hope. Each of the men has a haunting secret that they finally have the courage to share with each other.
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NEW HOPE TRILOGY
The Kaufmans:
An Intimate Portrait
George S. Kaufman was an American playwright and journalist, who became the stage director of most of his plays and musical comedies after the mid-1920s. He was the most successful craftsman of the American theatre in the era between World Wars I and II, and many of his plays were Broadway hits. He was also, despite his unassuming physical appearance, quite the ladies’ man who had an account with the Polly Adler, the most famous “uptown Madam” of her time. His affair with movie star Mary Astor became an international scandal which he and his wife, Bea, who was his best friend and manager, escaped by finding a place in New Hope – Barley Sheaf.
