Alfred Silver (1951- ) is a Canadian playwright, actor, and songwriter. He grew up in various locations on the Canadian prairies, and he now lives in Ardoise, Nova Scotia, and writes historical novels. His play, "Climate of the Times," was published in "New Canadian Drama," Volume 4, "Manitoba Dramatists" (1986 Borealis).

New Canadian Drama - Volume 4, Manitoba Dramatists, edited by Douglas Arrell. The plays in this anthology provide a sampling of the "first wave" of new Winnipeg playwrighting. "Alf Silver was the most significant figure in the early stages of Winnipeg´s modest playwrighting boom. His three plays at the Warehouse - Thimblerig (1982), Climate of the Times (1983), and Clearances (1984) - had a confident professionalism and ambition which proved Silver´s immunity to the usual Winnipeg habit of self-abnegation. Climate of the Times aroused the most controversy of the three, both over its theme and over its merits as a play. Its apparent aim is to indentify a Fascist tendency in the feminist movement, particularly in the alliance of some members of that movement with right-wing groups concerned with banning pornography. In fact, the play is also a dissection of the character of its heroine, Lorna, seeming to suggest that her fanaticism and political opportunism are linked to defects in her personality and personal relationships." "Bruce McManus´s ... Caffé is a lighter but more successful work; it was commissioned by the University of Winnipeg for its fourth-year acting class, a fact which explains its large, mainly-female cast. McManus seems fascinated by the attitudes manifested by the new artistic avante-garde precisely because they represent a reversal of the usual Winnipeg pattern; instead of using art as a means of expressing and fostering social committment, the New Wave uses everything - including social committment - as a means of creating art ... But the play is far from being an attack or even a satire on the New Wave; McManus seems rather to cherish every nuance of the new generation´s rejection of the traditional left-wing attitude to art, and to relish the discomfiture of the "serious" writer, Norman, who in many respects is his own alter-ego." "Alan Williams´s In Dreams ...was presented by the Hull Truck Theatre in England in 1981, long before Williams even came to Canada. Yet Williams belongs in a volume of Winnipeg plays, not only because of his great popularity and influence here - he had four productions on Winnipeg stages during the 1985-86 season - but because of his clear affinity to the Winnipeg playwrighting mode ... The dissection of the urban-folk-singer mentality exemplified by Ralph in In Dreams is very much in the Winnipeg mode. But William´s work also has many qualities which bespeak his origins in a richer theatrical environment."