April 11 – 2:00 pm |Â Livestream only
A Rehearsed Play Reading of Judgment Day by Max Wyman, Vancouver playwright, columnist and renowned performing arts critic
Presented by Off the Page in association with the PHT Creative Hub Co-operative.
Are we witnessing the end of the world as we know it—or can human civilization be saved?
Judgment Day is an absurdist moral comedy in which God is called to account for the sorry state the world is in. What it has to say about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic makes its presentation in this series particularly timely.
The reading will be followed by a talk-back with the playwright and cast. Not all questions will have answers.
Cast:
- Bernard Cuffling
- Janet Hodgkinson
- Tom Pickett
- Agnes Tong
- Wanda Nowicki
Max Wyman, Playwright
Max Wyman was born in England and emigrated to Canada in 1967. He was a theatre, dance and music critic and cultural columnist for the Vancouver newspapers and CBC for many decades, and has written a number of books on the arts, among them The Defiant Imagination, a passionate manifesto placing the arts at the heart of the social agenda. He is currently working on a sequel, The Compassionate Imagination, which argues that engagement with creativity will be an essential means of post-pandemic healing and renewal. He has been a member of the board of the Canada Council for the Arts, president of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and mayor of Lions Bay. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and holds an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Simon Fraser University. Judgment Day is his third play; Bluebell Time and Amazing Grace were featured in well-received public readings at the Kay Meek Arts Centre in West Vancouver.
Off the Page is a play reading series first held at the historic Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons BC in 2017.  Actors read plays by Lower Mainland playwrights who also attend the reading. After the show, the playwright and cast open the floor to audience members for questions and comments in lively talkback sessions. Off the Page was originally inspired by playwright David King.
Produced with the co-operation of the UBCP/ACTRA