{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}} {{Short description|Canadian playwright (1893–1975)}} {{Infobox writer | name = Merrill Denison | image = DenisonMerrill.png | birth_date = {{Birth date|1893|06|23|df=y}} | birth_place = Detroit, Michigan, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1975|06|12|1893|06|23|df=y}} | death_place = San Diego, California, U.S. | nationality = Canadian | occupation = Playwright | period = 1921–1967 | alma_mater = [[University of Toronto]] | relatives = [[Flora MacDonald Denison]] (mother) | spouse = {{marriage|[[Muriel Denison|Muriel Goggin]]|1926|1954|end = died}} }} '''Merrill Denison''' (23 June 1893 — 13 June 1975) was a Canadian playwright.<ref name="Atkey2006">Mel Atkey. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=VBlRWQLsLFsC&pg=PA45 Broadway North: The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre]''. Dundurn; 30 October 2006. {{ISBN|978-1-4597-2120-3}}. p. 45–.</ref> He created many dramas which were broadcast during the early days of radio, and was the art director of [[Hart House Theatre]], Toronto, Ontario.
==Early life==
Denison was born in Detroit and raised in [[Ontario]],<ref name="MacDonald1972">Dick MacDonald. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=N80HAQAAIAAJ The Media Game]''. Content; 1972. p. 11.</ref> the son of Canadian author, dressmaker, theosophist, Whitmanite, and feminist [[Flora MacDonald Denison|Flora MacDonald (Merrill) Denison]] and American garment salesman Howard Denison.<ref>[http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/merrill_flora_macdonald_15E.html''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'': MERRILL, FLORA MacDonald (Denison)]</ref><ref>[http://speeches.empireclub.org/62586/data?n=1''That Inferiority Complex: An Address by Merrill Denison, F.R.S.A.'']</ref> He studied architecture at Columbia University, then at the [[Ecole des Beaux Arts]] in Paris and finally at the [[University of Toronto]].<ref name="Campbell2000">John Campbell. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=xzuXmPEa1EUC&pg=PA93 The Mazinaw Experience: Bon Echo and Beyond]''. Dundurn; 15 July 2000. {{ISBN|978-1-55488-337-0}}. p. 93–.</ref>
==Career== Instead of making a career as an architect, Denison began working as the art director of Hart House Theatre in Toronto in 1921.<ref name = CTE>{{cite news|url = https://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Denison%2C%20Merrill|title = Denison, Merrill|website = Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia|accessdate = 27 November 2022}}</ref> In 1926 he married [[Muriel Denison|Jessie Muriel Goggin]]. Denison soon began to write comedies, some of which were conceived at his summer home in what would later become [[Bon Echo Provincial Park|Bon Echo]] and performed in the Tweed Playhouse in [[Tweed, Ontario|Tweed]], Ontario.
''The Romance of Canada'', a series of historical plays written by Denison, were broadcast as [[radio drama]]s in 1931 and 1932 by CNRV.<ref name="New2002">William H. New. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mkh2vJ_9GpEC&pg=PA306 Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada]''. University of Toronto Press; 2002. {{ISBN|978-0-8020-0761-2}}. p. 306, 930.</ref> During the decades that followed, he lived and worked in the United States, working on radio plays.<ref name = CTE/>
Increasingly interested in business history, during the 1950s and 1960s Denison wrote several histories of Canadian corporations, including ''Harvest Triumphant: The Story of Massey-Harris'' and ''The People's Power: the History of Ontario Hydro (1960)''.<ref name="SwiftStewart2004">''[https://books.google.com/books?id=6CV_wVkmTacC&pg=PR9 Hydro: The Decline and Fall of Ontario's Electric Empire]''. Between The Lines; 2004. {{ISBN|978-1-896357-88-1}}. p. 9–.</ref>
==Later life and death== Muriel Denison died in 1954; Merrill Denison subsequently remarried and lived in Canada, with homes in [[Montreal]] and eastern Ontario.<ref name = CTE/> In 1959, he donated his family property to the Province of Ontario for development into [[Bon Echo Provincial Park]].<ref name="Sugars2015">Cynthia Sugars. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=T4rwCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT571 The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature]''. Oxford University Press; 1 December 2015. {{ISBN|978-0-19-049400-1}}. p. 571–.</ref> Denison died in [[San Diego]] in 1975.<ref name = CTE/>
==Plays== * ''The Unheroic North: Four Canadian Plays'' (1923) ** ''Brothers in Arms, the Weather Breeder, From Their Own Place,'' and ''Marsh Hay.''<ref name="Sugars2015" /> * ''Henry Hudson and other plays: Six Plays for the Microphone'' (1931) from the 'Romance of Canada' series of radio broadcasts * ''The Raid on Grand Pre'' (1931) from the 'Romance of Canada' series of radio broadcasts * ''America in action: twelve one-act plays for young people, dealing with freedom and democracy.'' (1941) ** ''The U.S. vs. Susan B. Anthony,'' and ''Haven of the Spirit.''
==Books and papers== * ''The educational program'' (1935) - a discussion of facts and techniques in educational broadcasting * ''An American father talks to his son'' (1939) * ''Klondike Mike: An Alaskan Odyssey'' (1943) * ''Prodigy at sixty'' (1943) * ''Canada, our dominion neighbor'' (1944) * ''Harvest Triumphant: the Story of Massey-Harris'' (1949) * ''Bristles and brushes: A footnote to the story of American war production'' (1949) * ''The Barley and the Stream: the Molson story'' (1955) * ''The power to go: the Story of the Automotive Industry'' (1956) * ''The People's Power: the History of Ontario Hydro'' (1960) * ''Canada's first bank: A History of the Bank of Montreal'' (1966–67) (in two volumes)
==References== <references/>
==External links== *[http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Merrill%20Denison Denison's profile] at [[Athabasca University]]'s ''Canadian Theatre Encyclopaedia'' *[http://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/merrill-denison/ Merrill Denison entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia] *[http://www.countryroadshastings.ca/featured-articles-seed/2016/1/21/the-mugwump-canadian-a-tribute-to-merrill-denison "The “Mugwump” Canadian: A Tribute to Merrill Denison"]. ''Country Roads Hastings''. By Barry Penhale *[http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=105485&lang=eng Merrill Denison fonds] at [[Library and Archives Canada]]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Denison, Merrill}} [[Category:1893 births]] [[Category:1975 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:20th-century Canadian historians]] [[Category:20th-century Canadian male writers]] [[Category:Canadian expatriate writers in the United States]] [[Category:Canadian male dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:Canadian male non-fiction writers]] [[Category:Canadian people of American descent]] [[Category:Canadian radio writers]] [[Category:University of Toronto alumni]]