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David William Fennario (born David Wiper, 26 April 1947 – 16 September 2023) was a Canadian playwright, best known for Balconville (1979), his bilingual dramatization of life in working-class Montreal, for which he won the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award. A committed Marxist, Fennario was a candidate for the Union des forces progressistes in 2003 and for Québec solidaire in 2007. He has been the subject of two National Film Board of Canada documentaries, David Fennario's Banana Boots and Fennario: His World On Stage.

His pen name, "Fennario," given to him by a former girlfriend, is from a Bob Dylan song, "Pretty Peggy-O."

Fennario died on 16 September 2023, at the age of 76.

Works

• Without a Parachute (1972) (journals)
• On the Job (1976) (play)
• Nothing to Lose (1977) (play)
• Balconville (1979) (play)
• Joe Beef (1984) (play; based on the life and times of Joe Beef)
• Doctor Thomas Neill Cream (1988) (play)
• The Murder of Susan Parr (1989) (play)
• The Death of René Lévesque (1991) (play)
• Gargoyles (1997) (play)
• Banana Boots (1998) (play)
• Condoville (2005) (play)
• Bolsheviki (2010) (play)
• Motherhouse (2014) (play)

Further reading

Bowman, Martin (1982), Interview with David Fennario, in Cencrastus No. 8, Spring 1982, pp. 6 - 8, ISSN 0264-0856

References

1. Freeman, Alan (27 September 2023). "Montreal playwright David Fennario of Balconville fame gave the city's working-class anglophones a voice". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
2. "The David Fennario Package". NFB Online Collection. Retrieved 15 March 2008.
3. "Fennario, David". The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia. Athabaska University. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
4. "Montreal playwright David Fennario has died". CTV News. 18 September 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2023.

External links

• Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia article
• Literary Encyclopedia article
• Watch David Fennario's Banana Boots at NFB.ca

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• Québec solidaire candidates in Quebec provincial elections
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