Synopses & Reviews
One of Canadas most successful and enduring musical plays,
Billy Bishop Goes to War was first published in 1982 and went on to win the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award and the Governor Generals Award for Drama. In 2010, the celebrated story of the World War I flying ace credited with seventy-two victories and billed as the top pilot in the British Empire was revised to frame the original play as a retrospective. It is the same play it always was the difference is in the telling. Billy Bishop now appears in his later years, reflecting on his wartime exploits, and on the business of war and hero making. Bishops reminiscence is not so much about the horror and death of war as it is about being young and intensely alive. The prime of life / The best of men,” Bishop sings, It will never be / Like this again.”
A memory play about war, Billy Bishop has been going into battle onstage for more than thirty years. The Canadian classic is revisited in this second edition, where war is still a terrible thing, but some men say it was the greatest time of their lives. Its about the ironies and the price of survival.
The play format is deceptively simple with a solo narrator who assumes multiple roles while his piano-playing sidekick offers sardonic musical comments.
Cast of 2 men.
Synopsis
New edition includes the bestselling original musical play plus the acclaimed, revised version that depicts celebrated WWI hero Billy Bishop.
Synopsis
This revised, updated edition of one of Canadas most successful and enduring dramas, Billy Bishop Goes to War, includes the original Los Angeles Drama Critics Award and Governor Generals Awardwinning 1982 musical play, plus the 2010 reworking of the script. In this new edition, the First World War flying acecredited with seventy-two victories and billed as the top ace in the British Empireappears in his later years, as he reflects on his wartime exploits. An alternate ending, staging, and dialogue can be utilized depending on the age of the storyteller. Cast of two men.
John Gray is an award-winning playwright, author, and musician.
Eric Neal Peterson, an early pioneer in Canada's collective theater movement, has starred in the TV series Street Legal and Corner Gas.
About the Author
John Gray is the author of a novel, many magazine articles, several stage musicals, a book on tattoos,
Lost in North America: The Imaginary Canadian in the American Dream (1994),
Local Boy Makes Good (1987), and the internationally acclaimed
Billy Bishop Goes to War (1982) with Eric Peterson. He has contributed sixty-five satirical pieces for
The Journal on CBC Television, and is a frequent speaker on cultural issues. Among his many awards are the Governor Generals Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, and the National Magazine Award. He lives in Vancouver.
Eric Neal Peterson, stage, film and television actor is recognized as one of the early pioneers of the collective theatre movement in Canada during the 1970s. In 1976, he began working with John Gray, a playwright/director and fellow alumnus from Tamahnous Theatre, to create his most critically successful work, Billy Bishop Goes to War, a two-man show (Gray appeared as the narrator and pianist) in which he played more than a dozen characters.