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NEWS photo cindy ‘Goodman BLANCHE HOWARD'S first play, A Celibate Season, premieres tonight at Centenniai Theatre.

Oct. 31/90

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ibate Season

eins

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North Vancouver playwright tackles long-distance relationships in latest work

WHILE THE old adage contends that absence makes the

heart grow fonder,

North

Vancouver writer Blanche

Howard argues that more often than not it can lead to a

breakdown in relationships.

““Any separation can put a rela- tionship at risk,’’ says Howard, quoting a line from A Celibate Season, a new play about the toll separation takes on the marriage of a middle-aged couple.

Howard's first’ play premicres tonight at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre under the di- rection of Don Williams of the Moodyville Theatre Company.

It has been adapted from her soon-to-be-published novel, A Celibate Season, co-written by Canadian writer Carol Shields.

Last year the play was a finalist in the Canadian National Theatre Playwriting Competition and Howard is hoping the first stage production of her work will be as successful.

“At least I hope they’ (the audience) laugh when they’re sup- posed to,"’ chuckles Howard, 67.

Although Howard has written professionally since 1957 when her story about a Marilyn Monroe-

By Evelyn Jacob News Reporter

lookalike was published in Maclean’s Magazine, her cur- riculum vitae doesn't read like an award-winning novelist’s.

A bachelor of science grad with majors in chemistry, physics and math, Howard has racked up awards in philosophy and law and has worked as a chemist and as a chartered accountant for 10 years. But there was a part of her who always loved the arts.

“As a child I was a great reader and I always foved listening to stories,’’ she says.

After leaving the world of science behind, she never looked back.

In 1973 her first novel The Manipulator, won the Canadian Bookseller's Award. Then two years ago, Howard decided to try her hand at playwriting.

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By that point she already had four novels under her belt — The Manipulator, Preay Lady, The Immortal Soul of Edwin Carlysle and A Celibate Season.

With the help of the New Play Centre she was able to come up with a stage adaption of A Celi- bate Season, which she showed to Williams.

“I had little idea of what was involved,’' Howard says of playwriting. ‘I discovered that writers have to do a lot of re- writing during rehearsals. Some- times when you get a scene up on stage there is no dynamic, so it has to be changed.”’

The play, billed as a domestic comedy, revolves around Jock (Melanie Whyte) and Chas (Marek Czuma). He is an unemployed ar- chitect; she is a lawyer who gets a crack at the big time working in Ottawa on a commission looking into women’s poverty.

Howard exposes the pitfalls of long-distance relationships with humor and heart-warming clarity.

The play, however, is close at

hand, running until Oct. 21. Phone 984-4484 for information.

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