In the introduction, Anne Nothof says that what these recent plays have in common is “their resistance to the hegemony of Anglo society.” Perhaps, but all three are also finely crafted, imaginative plays from innovative writers who are making waves in Canadian theatre.

Joey Tremblay and Jonathan Christenson won international acclaim for their explosive but poignant script, “Elephant Wake,” at the Edinburgh festival in 1997. It’s a searing monologue about the disappearance of French-Canadian culture in a small prairie town. Jean Claude is the last member of his francophone family left in Ste Vierge, “a short cut to Minot, North Dakota” where people “can get their beer and their smokes … because it’s cheaper.”

Set in Vancouver, Marty Chan’s “Mom, Dad, I’m Living With a White Girl” presents a comic encounter between Chinese-Canadian parents and their son’s non-Asian girlfriend. Along the way, Chan skewers hypersensitive political correctness and introduces a wild parallel plot in the form of a parody of Asian action films.

Padma Viswanathan sets “House of Sacred Cows” in a co-op house in an unnamed Western Canadian city. Anand, recently arrived from India, turns up for the “mutual evaluation opportunity” for potential residents. His arrival results in some painful self-analysis in this fractured community. Against this finely observed comedy of manners, Viswanathan juxtaposes additional observations on East-West relations from characters loosely based on the Mahabharata.

Edmonton is the common denominator of all three plays: These scripts were nurtured in the creative interplay of the city’s rich theatre culture. This is due, in part, to the co-existence of the University of Alberta’s respected drama program, the largest fringe theatre festival in Canada, and decades of new play development by a cluster of professional theatres. The playwrights in this collection may be representatives of editor Nothof’s New West, but they are also beneficiaries of a long-established Canadian centre of theatrical excellence.