Having Hope At Home

By David S. Craig

Carolyn’s got one evening to make dinner, get married, make peace with her parents, and hide the fact she’s in labour. What could possibly go wrong?

Having Hope at Home is a side-splitting look at a family learning to love again. On a cold winter night, in a drafty farmhouse, a baby is about to arrive. But good intentions dissolve as modern medicine meets midwifery in a torrent of family feuding. As tensions rise between three stubborn generations, so does the laughter. It takes a baby to heal the rift in this hilarious, heart-warming story of forgiveness and hope. A light comedy with serious intentions, Playwright David S. Craig shows us how the human heart sometimes takes the longest way home.

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"Let’s cut right to the marrow. Having Hope at Home is a big-hearted comedy that will leave you in tears – tears of compassion and recognition as well as tears of laughter."

Waterloo RecordRobert Reid
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★★★★½ / 5
“Playwright David S. Craig has given us a remarkably clever comedy.”

Kingston Whig StandardPamela Oakley
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“A very, very funny and deeply touching play.”

View Magazine (Hamilton)Robin Pitts
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"It is a testament to the skill of playwright (David S.) Craig that neither side of this divided family is made entirely ridiculous or definitively right, and there is a protagonist for every side of the debate to be proud of…With Having Hope at Home he has created a truly Canadian blend of wood-stove domesticity, bilingual reconciliation, midwinter mortality, resilience and re-birth…"

View Magazine (Hamilton)Robin Pitts
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“Having Hope at Home is a must see comedy! This is a great example of a perfect play.”

Cowichan Valley Magazine
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“For goodness sake, go see Having Hope at Home. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. You’ll come out touched by the sheer joy of good theatre.”

The Hamilton SpectatorGary Smith
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“A delight-filled domestic comedy using heart-felt humour to convey its hopeful message about coping with the challenges of family life."

The London Free PressNoel Gallagher
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“This is a very, very funny and deeply touching play.”

The View (Hamilton)Robin Pitts
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"At first blush, Having Hope at Home looks like a hilarious comedy pitting midwifery against modern medicine. However, this is simply the scaffolding that supports what the comedy is really about, which is how a fractured family heals itself through love"

Kitchener-Waterloo RecordRobert Reid
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“Everything you could hope for – delightfully funny when it wants to be and dramatic when it has to be. Having Hope at Home disarms you with its sit-com architecture, letting you sit back and enjoy some perfectly constructed comedy.”

The Star PhoenixCam Fuller
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“David S. Craig’s comic drama about family feuding passed the laugh test with a bright red ribbon.”

Kamloops Daily NewsMike Youds
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"Very, very funny lines"

CBC Radio (Winnipeg)
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“Hope delivers laughs.”

Uptown WinnipegBarb Stewart
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“Chemainus Theatre Festival hits heights with Having Hope at Home…really worthwhile.”

The Chemainus CourierTom Masters
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“Engagingly written…Craig’s writing is enlivened by an endearing sense of humour and surprises. Just when you think the playwright is going for the ultimate well-made play, he toys with our expectations and takes his work in a different direction.”

The Globe and Mail (Toronto / Canadian National Paper)Kamal Al Solaylee
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“Sweetly comic, wise and wonderful, it’s a journey from anger and estrangement to where the heart reconnects with the joy of what it means to be alive…it is one of the best plays I’ve seen this year.”

The Hamilton SpectatorGary Smith
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". . . a big-hearted comedy that will leave you in tears — tears of compassion and recognition as well as tears of joy...Having Hope at Home will have you shedding tears of laughter one minute and tears of empathy the next. Just when it veers toward sentimentality, the production steers back toward heart-felt poignancy."

The Record.comRobert Reid

Production Details

3 Male

3 Female

100 minutes (with intermission)

By David S. Craig

Purchase Play Script

Production History

Having Hope at Home premiered at the Blyth Festival in Blyth, ON in 2003 under the production and direction of Eric Coates.

Lighthouse Festival, Port Dover, ON – 2004

Thousand Islands Playhouse, Gananoque, ON – 2004

Persephone Theatre, Saskatoon, SK – 2005

Red Barn Theatre, Jackson’s Point, ON – 2005

Magnus Theatre, Thunder Bay, ON – 2006

Western Theatre Canada, Kamloops, BC – 2007

The Gateway Theatre, Richmond, BC – 2007

The Prairie Theatre Exchange, Winnipeg, MB – 2008

Upper Canada Playhouse, Morrisburg, ON – 2008

Chemainus Theatre Festival, Chemainus, BC – 2008

Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton, ON – 2009

Hudson Village Theatre, Hudson, QC – 2009

The Globe Theatre, Regina, SK – 2011

Port Stanley Summer Festival, Port Stanley, ON – 2012

Victoria Playhouse, Victoria PEI – 2013

Neptune Theatre, Halifax, NS – 2014

Having Hope At Home has seen three German productions at the Theatre Chambinzky Wurzburg in 2007, The Theatre Fur Niedersachsen Hildesheim Hannover in 2009, and Massbach, Frankisches Theatre in 2011.

In the summer of 2012, the 10th anniversary of the premiere was celebrated with a production at the Blyth Festival.

Published by Playwrights Canada Press, 2005.

Blyth Festival Theatre, 2012

Black Box Theatre, Kelowna, 2015

Kelli McLeod & Morgan McLeod. Design: James A Glen ’08. David Cooper Photography

More Plays By David S. Craig

  • Athabasca

    By David S. Craig & Richard Greenblatt

  • BOMBERS: Reaping The Whirlwind

    By David S. Craig

  • Having Hope at Home

    By David S. Craig

  • The Neverending Story

    Adapted by David S. Craig, based on the novel by Michael Ende

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