Tom Cone (1947- ), playwright, was born in Florida, and studied in the United States and Italy before moving to Canada in 1970. There, he continued his schooling at Simon Fraser University. Since his acting debut at age six, Cone has transformed his love of theatre into such plays as " There" (premiered in 1972), "Herringbone" (Playwrights' Theatre Centre, 1975), "Stargazing" (Stratford Festival, 1978) and "The Architect" (Vancouver Opera, 1994). Cone currently resides in British Columbia.

New Canadian Drama - Volume 1, edited by Neil Carson. Westmount - "The original version of the play was called British Properties after the exclusive residential area in West Vancouver where it was set. Essentially it is a light farce in the tradition that goes back, via Gilbert and Sullivan, to Roman Comedy. Into his venerable dramatic bottle, however, Ouzounian has poured a few drops of new satiric wine." In Stargazing "Cone´s technical innovations are used to reinforce one of his central themes which is the isolation of individuals. Each of the stargazers in the play, like an early navigator, sets the course of his life by a distant light. The star each person follows gives meaning and direction to his life, but it also separates him from other voyagers. Cone is a challenging playwright whose more difficult work may not win a quick and easy popularity, but many theatre lovers, like drama critic Jamie Portman, consider Cone one of this country´s most original dramatists." "George Jonas´s Pushkin is innovative in a different way from either of the other two plays in this volume. Conventional in form, the piece attempts what is still relatively rare in this country - the recreation of a European milieu." "The idea for Pushkin developed when Marion Andre, Artistic Director of Theatre Plus, approached Jonas to write a play for Harry Belafonte. In the course of their discussion of black historical characters, the two men discovered a mutual interest in the great Russian poet and radical."