Michael Cook (playwright)

Michael Cook
Born	(1933-02-14)14 February 1933 Fulham, London, England
Died	St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Occupation	Theatre reviewer and playwright
Period	1971 - 1991

Michael Cook (14 February 1933 – 1 July 1994) was a Canadian playwright.

Early life

Born in Fulham, London, England, Cook settled in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1965 after serving seven years in the British Army, mostly in Asia.

Career

Most of Cook's work, including his best-known plays, Jacob's Wake and The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance, are set in Newfoundland, which provides a sometimes realistic and sometimes richly symbolic backdrop for his poetic rendering of lives in continual conflict with natural elements.

Personal life

Cook married three times, and fathered twelve children, including actor Sebastian Spence by his wife, Janis.

Cook retained a residence in Stratford, Ontario. While passing through St Johns on a trip to his summer home on Random Island, Cook became ill and died.

Plays

• Tiln, 1971.
• Colour The Flesh the Colour of Dust, 1972.
• The Head, Guts and Sound Bone Dance, 1973.
• Jacob's Wake, 1974.
• Quiller, 1975.
• Therese's Creed, 1976.
• The Fisherman's Revenge, 1976. (children's play)
• On The Rim of the Curve, 1977.
• The Gayden Chronicles, 1980.

Works about Michael Cook

• Craig Walker, "Michael Cook: Elegy, Allegory and Eschatology," The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.

External links

• Biography at Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage
• Michael Cook entry at Canadian Encyclopedia