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Charles Tidler

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Charles Tidler (born 1946) is an American–Canadian writer. He is a poet, small press publisher, playwright, novelist and spoken jazz artist. He is most noted for his early theatrical plays Straight Ahead and Blind Dancers[1] and his later novels Going to New Orleans and Hard Hed: The Hoosier Chapman Papers.

Early life and education

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Born Charles Lewis Amstutz in Bluffton, Ohio on April 23, 1946, his surname was changed to Tidler on April 19, 1950. Raised in Tipton, Indiana, he studied literature and philosophy at Purdue University, where his mentors included Barriss Mills, William H. Gass and May Swenson. Tidler founded the poetry magazine Wordjock while at Purdue.[2]

Career

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Early works

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Moving to British Columbia in 1969, Tidler settled on Salt Spring Island. He pursued an apprenticeship in poetry and published small mimeo magazines under the imprint Orphan Presz.[3] With his new wife and son, Tidler moved to Vancouver in 1975. He became a typesetter, working at Arsenal Pulp Press[4] and also for George Payerle. Pulp published his book-length poem FLIGHT: The Last American Poem in 1976.[5][6] Tidler has said, "The poetry, despite being unheralded, was and is my life and the reason I persisted as a writer. And the little mag scene is crucial to understanding my madness." In July 1977, Tidler moved to Comox, B.C., and in 1980 to a homesite near Merville, B.C.[7]

Encouraged by playwrights Tom Walmsley and Erika Ritter, and a workshop with Urjo Kareda, he wrote his first jazz play, Blind Dancers, a two-hander premiered by The New Play Centre at City Stage, Vancouver, in February 1979. Companion one-act play Straight Ahead, a jazz monologue by Ohio farm girl Louisa Potter at the edge of a threshing field on the day the atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, was produced by New Play Centre in April 1981.[8] Both plays, starring Rosemary Dunsmore and featuring Michael Hogan as her lover Dell,[9] directed by Henry Tarvainen,[10] were staged as an evening production by Toronto Free Theatre in May 1981, at the Toronto Theatre Festival. They were a success at the Edinburgh Fringe before returning to Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre in October.[11][12] Straight Ahead and Blind Dancers continued to receive stagings in various theatre markets.[13] The plays had 36 productions in all, including a three-week run at Tricycle Theatre in London's West End and a tour in southern England.

Tidler also wrote teleplays and screenplays, and had 45 scripts produced by CBC Radio, including an adaptation of Antigone, dramatic portraits of Andy Warhol and August Strindberg, six tales from Nathaniel Hawthorne, four episodes of The Mystery Project, and Singers of the Floating Highway, an anthology of six poets on the road produced by Bill Lane.[14][15] Tidler summarized, "I learned a lot writing radio plays, because of the range I was allowed by producers and the calibre of actors and musicians involved."

Later works

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Tidler began a teaching career in 1986, and for six years was the visiting lecturer in playwriting at the University of Victoria.[16] In 1992 he was passed over for a permanent position in favour of Margaret Hollingsworth. His 1996 satire The Sex Change Artist, a critique of academic patriarchy and its control of affirmative action at the time, was controversial.[17][18] It was produced by CBC Radio and for the stage by Victoria’s Intrepid Theatre. In spring 2001, Tidler returned to teaching playwriting at the University of Victoria, until his retirement there in fall 2015.

He continued to write stage plays, including The Farewell Heart,[19] The Butcher's Apron,[20] Fabulous Yellow Roman Candle,[21] Red Mango: a blues,[22][23] Tortoise Boy,[24] and 7eventy 7even.[25] His 2000 play Red Mango was staged as a double bill with a 20th-anniversary revival of Blind Dancers.[16] Tidler stated, "Red Mango was a breakthrough, where I decided to hell with writing what people expected of me."

His debut novel Going to New Orleans was published by Anvil Press in 2004 to good reviews.[26][27][28][29] Hard Hed: The Hoosier Chapman Papers, a retelling of the Johnny Appleseed[30] story, appeared in 2011,[31] followed by Useless Things [Redacted] in 2017.[32][33][34]

Bibliography

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Poems

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  • North of Indianapolis – 1969
  • Straw Things – 1972
  • Whetstone Almanac – 1975
  • Flight: The Last American Poem – 1976
  • Anonymous Stone – 1977
  • Broken Branches – 1977
  • Dinosaurs (with story by Laura Lippert) — 1982
  • Coffee Cops — 2006
  • Straw Things: Selected Poetry & Song — 2008

Stage plays

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  • Straight Ahead – 1981
  • Blind Dancers – 1981
  • The Farewell Heart – 1983
  • Fabulous Yellow Roman Candle – 1993
  • The Sex Change Artist – 1996
  • Jazz Play Trio: Fabulous Yellow Roman Candle, Straight Ahead, Blind Dancers — 1999
  • Red Mango: a blues – 2001
  • Rappaccini's Daughter – 2005
  • The Butcher's Apron – 2006
  • Tortoise Boy: A Chamber Play – 2008
  • Spit Delaney's Island: The Play – 2015
  • 7eventy 7even: 77 Found Micro Dramas – 2019

Novels

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  • Going to New Orleans – 2004
  • Hard Hed: The Hoosier Chapman Papers – 2011
  • Useless Things [Redacted] – 2016

Awards and honors

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Straight Ahead and Blind Dancers were jointly shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 1981 Governor General's Awards[35] and won a Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award in 1982.[36]

References

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  1. ^ Horenblas, Richard (October 28, 1981). "Charles Tidler as yet unknown but not for long". Toronto Downtown.
  2. ^ Tidler, Charles. "Wordjock". Wordjock. 4.
  3. ^ Tidler, Charles. "Post Modernism: A Primary Source". Biblio.
  4. ^ Parker, George L. (December 3, 2012). Small Presses in the 1960s and 1970s. Vancouver/British Columbia: The Canadian Encyclopedia.
  5. ^ Pleasants, Ben (December 16, 1976). "Tidler puts literacy to 'Flight'". Los Angeles Vanguard.
  6. ^ Madoff, Mark (March 1977). "Charles Tidler: til foothold taken". Vol. 9, no. 3. Small Press Review.
  7. ^ Wyman, Max (May 6, 1982). "Charles Tidler, the man whose visiting card reads 'ploughboy playwright'". The Vancouver Province.
  8. ^ Twigg, Alan (April 24 – May 1, 1981). "Superb Performance Pulls It Off". Vancouver Free Press—Georgia Straight.
  9. ^ Ray Conlogue, "Dunsmore is simply superb in Tidler's poetic double bill". The Globe and Mail, October 23, 1981.
  10. ^ Vicky Sanderson, "Tidler's 1-act plays like 1-note sambas". The Globe and Mail, October 23, 1981.
  11. ^ Conlogue, Ray (October 23, 1981). "Dunsmore is simply superb in Tidler's poetic double bill". The Globe and Bail.
  12. ^ Czarnecki, Mark (November 9, 1981). "Raunchy song of innocence". Maclean’s: Canada’s Weekly Newsmagazine.
  13. ^ Vit Wagner, "Simple folk wax poetic in wordy one-act plays". Toronto Star, October 27, 1987.
  14. ^ Papoutsis, Natalie Anastasia. "AN EAR FOR AN EYE: GREEK TRAGEDY ON RADIO" (PDF).
  15. ^ Tidler, Charles. "Vanishing Point". SciFi Mike.
  16. ^ a b Adrian Chamberlain, "Tidler travels to Bluesville: Victoria playwright's production opens at Belfry Theatre tonight. How closely the character in Red Mango resembles Charles Tidler is something we may never know. Indeed, Tidler deftly sidesteps that comparison". Victoria Times-Colonist, April 26, 2000.
  17. ^ Chamberlain, Adrian (September 13, 1995). "Playwright takes shot at those politically correct hirings". Times Colonist.
  18. ^ Bob Rowlands, "Unpolished effort has great potential". Victoria Times-Colonist, November 9, 1996.
  19. ^ Ray Conlogue, "Play about hippies misses the mark". The Globe and Mail, November 25, 1983.
  20. ^ Robert Crew, "Burlesque defeats fine cast". Toronto Star, March 22, 1990.
  21. ^ Adrian Chamberlain, "Play about Kerouac aims for jazz-inspired exuberance". Victoria Times-Colonist, October 26, 1994.
  22. ^ Leach, David (April 27 – May 3, 2000). "Playwright Sings the Blues". Monday Magazine. Broughton Communications.
  23. ^ Chamberlain, Adrian (April 28, 2000). "Go man go to see Belfry's latest work". The Times Colonist.
  24. ^ Threlfall, John (April 2004). "Turtle Diaries". Monday Magazine. Broughton Communications.
  25. ^ Babiak, Peter (Winter 2020). "77 Found Micro Dramas". subTerrain Magazine. No. 84.
  26. ^ Hunt, Ken (August 2004). "Going to New Orleans". Quill & Quire.
  27. ^ Bartley, Jim (August 21, 2004). "First Fiction: Southern sewer". The Globe and Mail.
  28. ^ Snyders, Tom (September 16–23, 2004). "Nawlins Jazz Fantasy Erects Wall of Voodoo". The Georgia Strait.
  29. ^ Ken Hunt, "Going to New Orleans, by Charles Tidler". Quill & Quire, August 2004.
  30. ^ Candace Fertile, "Not an easy read, but well worth it". Victoria Times-Colonist, September 4, 2011.
  31. ^ Mathews, Mike. "For readers who might suppose Hoosiers..." The Malahat Review.
  32. ^ Adrian Chamberlain, "Hodgins stories revived for stage". Victoria Times-Colonist, December 3, 2015.
  33. ^ Moore, John (Winter 2017–2018). "Sexual Treachery vs. Friendship". BC Bookworld.
  34. ^ Pleasants, Ben (September 2016). "Straw Things: Selected Poetry & Song". Canadian Poetry Review. 6 (5).
  35. ^ Brian Brennan, "Sharon Pollock delighted; David Cassidy plays West". Calgary Herald, May 18, 1982.
  36. ^ William H. New (2002). Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. University of Toronto Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-0-387-20109-2.
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