An award winning playwright has ended his career with a renowned theatre company because of a play about Stephen Harper.
According to an article in the Toronto Star, Michael Healey has left Taragon Theatre over their decision not to produce his play, which included a satirical character depicting Prime Minister Harper.
Healey, who has been critical of the Harper government in the past, said the company's artistic director Richard Rose told him there was "concern the play could potentially libel Stephen Harper."
"I expected (Rose) to tell me his season was already chosen or that the play wasn't ready, but I wasn't prepared for the libel stuff," Healey told the Star.
As noted in the Star, arts groups in Canada have been sensitive to negative attention from the Prime Minister's Office since the Summerworks Festival had its federal funding slashed at the last minute in 2011, a year after it had produced a play, Homegrown, which the PMO said "glorified terrorism."
Could this be why Taragon nixed Healey's play?
"For the second time in year, a Toronto playwright has felt the chilling reach of the federal Conservatives, interfering with the staging of a theatre production," noted the Now Toronto's online editor Joshua Errett.
"Of course even the suspicion that the Prime Minister would become litigious (or worse) in response to artistic criticism is enough to worry about Canadian society. This is the type of preemptive censorship you hear about in Myanmar or Belarus."
Healey told the Globe and Mail other theatre companies are looking at his draft, but he acknowledged it may be too late for any of them to schedule it for 2012-13.
As a result, he indicated he might consider producing it himself.
37 comments