[ Curran / Cake Walk ]
Colleen Curran is a Canadian playwright, novelist, and actor.
Cake Walk is a 1984 comic play set during a cake-baking competition taking place on Canada Day (July 1) in 1984. The play focuses on the interaction between five of the competitors (and the daughter of one of the competitors), during which time they reveal much about their ambitions, their plans, and their characters.
There is no actual Newfoundland in the play, but one of the characters, the well-to-do competitor Augusta, explains that various family obligations have kept her from entering the cake competition in prior years. One of those obligations was caring for the family's Newfoundland dog, Mr. Smallwood, who once nearly caused a riot on the main street of town when he was mistaken for a bear.
The dog's name, "Mr. Smallwood," is a reference to the Newfoundland political figure Joseph R. Smallwood (1900 - 1991), considered the person most responsible for making Newfoundland part of Canada in 1949. He served as the first premier of the province of Newfoundland.