Elinore Siminovitch Biography

Elinore Siminovitch was born in Poland and immigrated to Montreal at age five. She studied languages in Montreal and Paris and following the birth of her three daughters started to write short stories.

Her first short stories were sold to CBC Radio and one of her earliest plays was produced on the Montreal television program Telecast. Although never abandoning short stories, she decided to concentrate on plays when her editor suggested that her excellent dialogue would be better suited to the stage. Her writing career spanned 1962 to 1994 and included over 30 plays with productions or readings of twelve in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Her themes included feminism and sexual stereotyping as illustrated by Big X Little Y, which won the Ottawa Little Theatre's Playwriting Competition, and was produced at Glendon College, at Montreal's Playwrights' Workshop Theatre and in numerous high schools across the country. One of Toronto's early feminist theatre companies, Redlight Theatre, opened its 1975 season with her Strange Games. In Little White Lies, part of Toronto Free Theatre's Playreading Series, she tackled the political values and moral dilemma of Eleanor Marx, Karl Marx's daughter.

Her script for A Man in the House, a winner in Theatre Ontario's first Playwrights Festival, garnered a cheque for $5,000, a certificate presented to her by Pauline McGibbon and a production of her work at Harbourfront. Set in Montreal during the Depression, A Man in the House, concerns a woman struggling with the political pressures of the times.

Jewish themes were central to some of her works. A Matter of Survival, commissioned by B'nai B'rith, drew on Holocaust themes; The Answer, told the story of a young scientist who joins the Communist Party and eventually defects to Russia; and Hannah, was the story of the life of Hungarian resistance leader Hannah Senesh. Hannah was the first winner of the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Contest and was produced posthumously by the Jewish Theatre Committee of Toronto.

Elinore Siminovitch died in Toronto in 1995.