Kelly Rebar
Writing
Biography
Playwright, born 1956 in Lethbridge Alberta, and grew up in Calgary, where her first play, Chatters was produced in 1974 at Factory Theatre West. She graduated from York University in Film Studies in 1978, and returned to Alberta to write Checkin’ Out, commissioned by Northern Light Theatre, produced in 1981. It subsequently played across Western Canada. She is best known for Bordertown Café which was commissioned by Blyth Festival and premiered there in 1987. Set in a café on the Canadian side of the Alberta/Montana border, it features a hybrid American/Canadian family whose members are torn between their unrealized hopes and dreams and family loyalties. The teenage son finally opts to stay in Alberta with his struggling young single mother, to help his Canadian grandfather harvest the wheat, instead of joining his freewheeling truckdriving father in the US. It won the 1990 CAA for Drama, and was made into a feature film by Cinexus/Famous Players, directed by Norma Bailey from a screenplay by Rebar, who received a Genie Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Bordertown Café has been widely produced in its revised version in theatres across Canada, including Theatre New Brunswick, Centaur Theatre, Grand Theatre, London, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Globe Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Arts Club Theatre, Belfry Theatre (2009) and again at the Blyth Festival with a new cast in 2010. It is published by Talonbooks. Rebar’s other plays include Cornflower Blue (Memories From A Prairie Childhood), commissioned by the Blyth Theatre Festival and toured throughout Ontario and Manitoba. First Snowfall was written when Rebar was playwright in residence at Alberta Theatre Projects and was produced by Theatre Network. Her plays are notable for their colloquial dialogue, and voluble characters. Rebar also writes for television and film, including the television series Wind at My Back and Jake and the Kid. She has adapted several of Alice Munro’s short stories, including the television feature based on Lives of Girls and Women (1994).
Known For
Life in Crocus as seen through the eyes of a young lad, Ben, and his friend Jake. Jake and the Kid is a Canadian television drama series, which aired on the CanWest Global system of stations in the 1990s. The second (1995) television adaptation of W. O. Mitchell's 1961 short story collection Jake and the Kid the series is set in the small town of Crocus, Saskatchewan, and centres on the friendship between Ben "the Kid" Osborne (Ben Campbell), a young boy growing up on a farm with his widowed mother Julia (Patricia Harras), and Jake Trumper (Shaun Johnston), a farmhand who becomes Ben's surrogate father figure.
Jake and The Kid
A coming of age story for Del Jordan, growing up first on the outskirts, and later in the centre, of the small, southern Ontario town of Jubilee. Del is portrayed as something of an outsider, unsatisfied with small-town life though unwilling to acknowledge the similarities between herself and her mother, who also seeks to expand her mind beyond the limited experiences of Jubilee.
Lives of Girls & Women
One of a series of short, open-ended dramas designed to stimulate discussion of values and ethics in relation to modern medical technology. This film considers the chronic patient's right to quality care, and the acutely ill patient's right to a hospital bed. Jean is suffering from multiple sclerosis and is almost completely paralyzed. It seems that the only ones who care about her are the nurses. With the arrival of a patient in need of an operation, it becomes apparent that chronic patients have little priority.
Discussions in Bioethics: A Chronic Problem
Marlene is the owner of a nostalgic cafe on the border of Canada and the USA. Filled with quirky and charming characters, life at the cafe is exciting, entertaining and sometimes chaotic.
Bordertown Cafe
A 17-year-old girl refuses medical treatment that will prolong her life due to religious convictions.
Discussions in Bioethics: The Courage of One's Convictions
A half-hour drama based on a short story by Alice Munro in which a young woman has to deal with her snobbish husband when her aunt comes to dinner. The aunt is unsophisticated and perhaps boring, but the young wife comes to realize how this fat woman's warmth and humanity have so much more value than her husband's cold sophistication.