Book List   »   The Sandy Triptych
The Sandy Triptych
Author: Lisa Coleman-Brown
Format: ebook
Available From:
Description:

The Sandy Triptych, is the one act, three scene, dramedy adaptation of three unpublished autobiographical short stories by the late, well respected, Toronto disabilities activist Sandra Carpenter.

In Scene 1, "Hope", Sandy is living in Bloorview's Home for "Crippled" Children and is with her disabled friends on a field trip to an Easter Seals telethon at O'Keefe Center where she meets the celebrity Bob Hope.

Scene 2, "The Wheel of Woe", is in the style of a tv game show where Sandy meets "The Nurse of Good Intentions" and gleefully tap dancing "The Grim Reaper of Pain" - while spinning the wheel of woe her painful childhood operations for her SMA Spinal Muscular Atrophy disability are described.

In Scene 3, "Just Like Real Kids", Sandy and her disabled friends are on a field trip, organized by an eager service club so that they can experience the adventure of going fishing. Special, secret, arrangements have been made with a volunteer frogman to guarantee the catch of quite cold already dead fish!

(The three scenes in this triptych can also be performed as stand alone plays.)

Keywords:  children with disabilities, disability issues in society, teens with disabilities, 1960s, pain, operation, tap dancing, disability, one act

Genre: Drama/Comedy, Adaptation
Picture of the Author Lisa Coleman-Brown
Author Details:

A member of the SWG since 2012, Lisa is also a member of the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada. She was born in Vancouver (vintage ’57) and raised in Montreal and Toronto. Following a successful blind date with beloved husband Joe Brown she has lived in Garson since 1989.

As a child Lisa was impressed by her late father’s ability to tell stories that he made up in the moment without a book in his hands. This inspired her and she began writing stories in Hilroy Notebooks to impress the boys (“The Clue in the Alley: A Rob Beanlands Mystery”) during her Grade 2 reign as the Kissing Queen behind the portables at Dallington Drive Public School in Don Mills, Ontario. When she was a teenager she helped senior citizens with their autobiographies. At U of T, and the Toronto Film Society she wrote film reviews, and she was the co-editor of Ryerson’s literary journal the White Wall Review in 1980.

During the ‘80s in Toronto, Lisa’s imagination, fueled by dreams and manic-depression hallucinations, found creative release in Super8mm, 16mm, and video, independent filmmaking. Her production company was called Trance Forms Productions, and her experimental film subject matter included: children performing fairy tales, an artist creating an aquatint, persons with disabilities, and gay erotica.

These days, standing six feet tall with snow on the roof and a twinkle in her eye, Lisa writes short stories, plays, screenplays, and limericks. Her works (and co-written stories) have been published in Laurentian University’s literary journal SULPHUR IV, VIII, IX, and the following anthologies: Creepy Capreol, Creepy Capreol Jr., Sudbury Ink, Creepy Capreol Jr. 2:Too Many Zombies, and the Zombie Digest.

She has collaborated, most often on horror stories, with fellow guild member Matthew Del Papa. Together they were commissioned by the Northern Ontario Railroad Museum and Heritage Centre, and Northern Screams to write the novella “Nightmare at the North Pole” published as a companion piece for the Terror Train 6077 2015 October haunt, and the radio play “Inferno 6077: Born Out of Fire” featured in the multimedia “Covid-safe” drive-in style 2020 October haunt.