Playwriting
While Brendan received focused training in the field and wrote a number of scripts in his late teens and early twenties that received attention and interest: Misguided Intentions (Kaleidoscope Youth Playwrights Festival); Shots of Moonshine; Entwined, Twisted, and Bound (CCPA); two collective projects including Company C’s multidisciplinary SpeakOffice; and an incomplete project under the working title of The Rambler, he struggled significantly with writer’s block for a decade until he finally accepted that there was a very personal story he needed to tell. In 2017, after dedicating time and a studio space specifically to the project, he wrote a first rough treatment of what would eventually become Anatomy of Love.
His most recent projects are:
Anatomy of Love
(2018) developed through the support of the Sunset Theatre’s Exploration Series.
Daven, a sex-ed columnist and Cariboo Gold Rush enthusiast with repressed trauma, finds himself thrust back in time, the captive of an aggressive and perplexingly attractive bounty hunter who is hellbent on forcing him to either re-explore his past or face devastating consequences.
An allegory of sorts, Anatomy of Love is a raw, challenging, mind-bending science fiction romp through romance and violence, sex and loss, and society’s fascination with sexual violence and the “Wild West.”
*Exploration Series Dramaturge: Danette Boucher
Sawney’s Legacy
(2020) developed in part through the support of the Sunset Theatre’s Exploration Series.
An Edwardian doctor reflects on the impact that his father, poet James Anderson (of Sawney’s Letters renown), left not only on him as a young man in Scotland but also on the society of the Cariboo Gold Rush in the 1860s.
Part historical biography, part coming-of-age story, and part family narrative, Sawney’s Legacy ‘explores moral and practical choices in an historical context with contemporary resonance.’
*With Thanks to historian, Richard Thomas Wright, for the contribution of his decades of research on James Anderson (1835-1922) and family.
2022- present: Directed by Dirk Van Stralen, designed by Emily Bailey, and performed by Brendan Bailey.
In Development:
Brendan has a number of projects currently in development at present including a solo-performer “Goldpan Poetry” play, a period-piece musical theatre project, and a dramatic screenplay.
