I Love You, Judy Merril, official poster
I Love You, Judy Merril is a play on memory. The main character — also named Jim Smith — has been abducted by aliens, who have scanned his brain and want to know about Smith’s relationship with Judy Merril, the late science fiction writer.
According to Smith, Merril is “the father he wished he had.” The play seeks to answer the question, “Is it ever too late to say ‘I love you’”?
Smith’s writing career spans over four decades. His first assignment was a short story review in the West Coast Review, for which he was paid a tidy $5. “I was thrilled, despite the small payment,” Smith told Concordia University Magazine in 2012. “It was nice to finally have a token of acceptance.”
Since that first article, Smith has been published many times and has written two books: Back Off, Assassin: New and Selected Poems (Mansfield Press, 2009) and Happy Birthday, Nicanor Parra (Mansfield Press, 2012).
At age 43 he enrolled at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, completing his articling in 1998. Smith now practices civil law for the Ontario Attorney General, defending the Crown and Ontario Provincial Police in court.
I Love You, Judy Merril runs from July 3 through 12 at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace in Toronto.