Harry Rintoul

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Harry Rintoul (December 9, 1956 - January 14, 2002) was a Canadian playwright and theatre director. He was best known for his 1990 play Brave Hearts,[1] which was noted as one of the first significant gay-themed plays in Canadian theatre history to be written by a heterosexual writer, and one of the first ever to address gay themes in a rural setting outside of the traditional gay urban meccas of Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.[2]

Born in Canmore, Alberta, Rintoul moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in childhood. As a young adult he moved to Regina, Saskatchewan for a time, during which he began writing Brave Hearts,[3] but then moved back to Winnipeg and founded Theatre Projects Manitoba.[4] The first production of Brave Hearts was staged by Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto, where it was a Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee for Outstanding New Play, Small Theatre Division in 1991.[5] In 1992 Brave Hearts was included in Making Out, the first significant anthology of gay-themed Canadian plays, alongside works by David Demchuk, Sky Gilbert, Daniel MacIvor, Colin Thomas and Ken Garnhum;[6] in 2006, it appeared in the anthology Perfectly Abnormal: Seven Gay Plays, alongside plays by Greg Kearney, , , Greg MacArthur, Ken Brand and .[7]

Rintoul's other plays included Life and Times, Refugees,[8] Montana,[9] Jack of Hearts, Between Then and Now, The Convergence of Luke[10] and Lake Nowhere.

Following his death in 2002, the Manitoba Association of Playwrights established an annual Harry S. Rintoul Memorial Award, presented to the year's best play by a Manitoba writer at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.

References[]

  1. ^ "A brave play and production". Kingston Whig-Standard, January 23, 1992.
  2. ^ "Gay play act of courage". Calgary Herald, September 27, 1994.
  3. ^ "Threshold begins new series". Kingston Whig-Standard, January 21, 1992.
  4. ^ "Home is where the art is". Winnipeg Free Press, November 4, 2014.
  5. ^ "Music and sex dominate Doras". Toronto Star, May 15, 1991.
  6. ^ "Book symbolizes gays' advances". The Globe and Mail, June 4, 1992.
  7. ^ Perfectly Abnormal: Seven Gay Plays. Playwrights Canada Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0887548529.
  8. ^ "Tough play proves potent ticket: Insight and emotion await at Men's Fest". Vancouver Sun, August 13, 1994.
  9. ^ "Western fringe". Winnipeg Free Press, July 23, 2006.
  10. ^ "Shields festival opens stage doors". Winnipeg Free Press, May 24, 2007.
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