Oregano

By Rose Napoli

One moment, Mona's father is teaching her to make pasta sauce at 2 AM and the next, she sits next to him in a hospital room, counting the seconds between beeps. When a curiously familiar barefooted boy runs in, carrying a blue umbrella and singing a song Mona's heard somewhere before, the rain begins. And Mona goes on a journey forward to the past.

Steeped in legend and lore, Oregano is a family play about accepting the past in order to embrace the future. Teaching us that sometimes, the truth can be exactly as we imagine it to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scirocco Drama
• Release date: Jul 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781990737527

Rose Napoli

Rose Napoli is an actor and writer based out of Toronto. She was named by NOW Magazine as a top ten theatre artist and has been called a “rising star” and “an artist to watch” by the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, respectively. She has taken part in residences with the Stratford Festival, the Musical Stage Company, Nightwood and Tarragon Theatres. She is the author of six plays, including Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells), which was nominated for a Dora Mayor Moore award for Outstanding New Play. Other works include: Legacy, A Death and the Marias, That’s Amore, Ten Creative Ways to Dispose of your Cremains, and Oregano. She is represented by Marquis Literary, is a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada, and participated in the Canadian Film Centre’s Prime Time Television Writing Program.

Book preview

Cover: Oregano by Rose Napoli, published under Scirocco Drama, by J. Gordon Shillingford, shows a boy holding an umbrella and running uphill to a house on a cloudy and stormy night. A face of a woman is seen in the clouds, looking down at the boy.

Oregano

Rose Napoli

Oregano

first published 2018 by Scirocco Drama

An imprint of J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing Inc.

© 2018 Rose Napoli

Scirocco Drama Editor: Glenda MacFarlane

Cover design by Terry Gallagher/Doowah Design

Author photo by Ian Brown

Printed and bound in Canada on 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Manitoba Arts Council and

The Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, without the permission of the publisher. This play is fully protected under the copyright laws of Canada and all other countries of the Copyright Union and is subject to royalty. Changes to the text are expressly forbidden without written consent of the author. Rights to produce, film, record in whole or in part, in any medium or in any language, by any group, amateur or professional, are retained by the author.

Production inquiries should be addressed to:

Talent House

204A St George St.

Toronto, ON M5R 2N5

416.960.9686

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Napoli, Rose, author

Oregano / Rose Napoli. -- First edition.

A play.

ISBN 978-1-927922-40-8 (softcover)

I. Title.

PS8627.A66O74 2018 C812'.6 C2018-900236-0

J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing

P.O. Box 86, RPO Corydon Avenue, Winnipeg, MB Canada R3M 3S3

For Mimmo

A black and white photograph of the author Rose Napoli. She is wearing a high necked dress.

Rose Napoli

Rose is an actress and playwright based in Toronto. Named as an Artist to Watch by the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and NOW Magazine, Rose has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award and a Prix Rideau. Most recently, her play Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells) premiered at the Streetcar Crowsnest in 2017 as part of The Consent Event co-produced by Nightwood Theatre and Crow’s Theatre. She has been a member of playwrights units with Nightwood, the Thousand Islands Playhouse, and the Tarragon Theatre. Her plays include: Shrew (A Big Fat Italian Comedy Inspired by William Shakespeare), Ten Creative Ways to Dispose of your Cremains, and A Death and the Marias. Oregano is her first play and was shortlisted for the RBC Emerging Playwright Award at Tarragon Theatre. As an actress, Rose has worked around the country and in the US with various theatre companies and in film and television. She was born in Montreal and graduated from the University of Windsor, where she also spent a few years working as a teacher with the Windsor Essex County District School Board.

Acknowledgements

Oregano was presented with support from the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Special thanks to Elana Post, Pierre Brault, Lynne Griffin, Tal Gottfried, Maria Vacratsis, Juan Chioran, Peter Pasyk, Marcia Johnson, and Paula Wing for their assistance in the play’s development.

Production History

Oregano premiered at the Storefront Theatre

in Toronto,