Perched high on the seventh-storey ledge of an apartment building, a man is preparing to jump. Before he can, a series of people interact with him from different apartment windows and a few even join him on the ledge.

7 Stories is a delightfully absurd look at the trivialities of everyday life and the ways in which we strive to imbue that life with meaning. While skewering the mundane preoccupations of modern society and exposing the self-centeredness and hypocrisy of its citizens, Panych manages to express a very loving and hopeful perspective on the human condition. This touchingly funny, surrealist play is about the surprises that come when you take your life into your own hands.

Originally produced in 1989 by Vancouver's Arts Club Theatre, 7 Stories became Panych's "break-through" play and established him as a major voice in Canadian theatre. The play has been produced more than forty times worldwide including in New York, London, Sydney, Budapest, Tokyo and Seoul, and has been translated into five other languages including Japanese, Korean and Hungarian.

It won six Jessie Richardson Awards (1990) including Outstanding Original Play, Outstanding Production and Outstanding Set Design; four Dora Mavor Moore Awards (1991); and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award.

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"Morris Panych's 7 Stories is a sweet and funny little play about a man on an apartment building's window ledge whose deliberations, presumably about whether to jump, keep being interrupted by nutty residents who poke their heads out of windows. How do you know this is a well-conceived work? Because each of the interlopers seems interesting enough to be the subject of a play as well." - The New York Times (New York, USA)

"Panych's text delivers: It is funny, philosophical, often poetic and shows no signs of dating." - The Globe and Mail (National, Canada)

"Twenty years after its creation, 7 Stories seems more entertaining and yet more relevant than ever. It's the kind of fate that every author should enjoy." - Toronto Star (Toronto, Canada)

"Hilarious leap into laughter" - Calgary Herald (Calgary, Canada)

"...Panych has created a gem of a play that captures the human foibles that jumps from the comedic to the serious with split second timing." - AM 740 (Toronto, Canada)

"Morris Panych's 7 Stories, which premiered at the Arts Club's Seymour Street Theatre in 1989, is still standing proud artistically - and it will no doubt remian a lovely, always precariously balanced monument to frailty and hope. - The Georgia Straight (Vancouver, Canada)