Harvey Ostroff, B.A., M.A.
Playwright, Teacher, Workshops
12687 18A Ave.
Surrey, B.C.
Can. V4A 5T6
Phone: 604 535 4810
Email: heo@shaw.ca
www.theatretogo.net
Harvey has taught drama for 30 + years. He directed more than 150 plays
ranging from Twelfth Night to Children of a Lesser God. During this time he
had a wide variety of other theatrical experiences including teaching
playwrighting and classroom drama at several universities, acting as Drama
Consultant for the Surrey School District) and writing plays and
videoscripts. His works have been mounted on Vancouver stages since 1983. He
is currently actor, author, playwright, voiceover artist and workshop
leader.
Full Length Plays
Viagra Diatribes
(comedy) 75 min.
An octogenarian and his oldest friend meet daily to kibbitz a little bit talk about this and that and watch the world go by. This comic piece turns when one of them reveals that his lymphoma has returned and they realize that this may be one of their final meetings. 2m Could be mounted on its own or considered as the first act of Viagra
Diatribes) Produced Bellingham, Wa., White Rock B.C. and for the Vancouver Fringe
Festival
The Runaways
(comic drama) 50 min.
Could be mounted on its own or considered as the second act of Viagra Diatribes) Eli Golden, eighty-five, a retired bookseller who has been widowed for ten
years has run away from the managed care home which his son " the drug
dealer² has arranged for him. He is at the beginning stages of Alzheimer's
and no longer capable of the independence he seeks. He finds the bench,
where he used to meet his recently deceased best friend Anton, has been
taken over by Pandora Wonder, a fifteen year old runaway. The meeting, which
is at times hilarious and at times poignant leads to friendship and
understanding. 1m, 1f , Equity staged reading scheduled June 2009.
Delimax
(drama)
On the evening of a bitter ice storm in downtown Montreal, a survivor of the
holocaust
incarcerates his French Canadian and her Nationalist boyfriend to teach them
the meaning of persecution. The lesson goes awry. 3m 2f.
Workshop, John Cooper. New Play Centre. Awarded staged reading.
Produced by Western Washington University. Director Dennis Catrell
Regional finalist in ACTF
My Music
(drama)
Revised from One act play Yossel¹s Music
Seventy-five years in the life of concert musician Yossel Zaiger. This
history of a violinist who immigrated to Canada in 1910 was first produced
as a one act entitled Yossel's Music. (3m 1f) (with doubling.)
Presented at the playwrights forum. AFJT conference 2009
Workshop Pamela Hawthorne NPC.
Produced Studio 58 Director Anthony Holland
One Act Plays
The Bubbeh
(drama)
Two women, an archetypal Yiddish bubbeh and a sixty-something grandmother in
denial meet in the cardiac unit of a large urban hospital. Although they
seem to fulfill their stereotypical roles, surprises and conflicts abound.
3f.
Workshop/Reading Chappelle Jaffe. Playwright¹s Theatre Centre , Vancouver.
The Zaideh
(drama)
In this three generation work, a successful wildlife artist from Vancouver
who has been estranged from his father for seventeen years brings his son to
meet the Zaideh while his father, who is in the beginning stages of
Alzheimer¹s and living in an old folks home, is still able to comprehend the
situation. Wounds, old and new are opened in this attempt to resolve the
consequences of the separation. 3m.
Workshop/Reading Chappelle Jaffe. Playwright¹s Theatre Centre, Vancouver.
(The above works are companion pieces and can be produced together)