Tuesday, April 3, 2012

News: (Toronto) Tarragon Moves Forward from winter of discontent with season 2012-13

After a winter of discontent surrounding the Michael Healey controversy, Tarragon theatre's artistic director, Richard Rose is moving on by announcing the 2012-13 season lineup.


Among the eleven works featured in the all-Canadian season are plays by Hannah Moscovitch, Morris Panych and John Mighton. Directors include Rose himself, Chris Abraham, Panych (directing his adaptation of Schnitzler's Anatol), and Nina Lee Aquino directing a new work by David Yee about the horrific Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.


(It should be noted that Healey has announced dates and a venue for his own production of his play, Proud:  Berkeley Street Theatre, September 20, 2012 to October 6.)


Read the Tarragon press release:




Tarragon Announces All-Canadian 2012-2013 Season of Plays
11 Plays from Acclaimed Canadian Playwrights
Toronto, April 3, 2012  - Artistic Director Richard Rose and Interim General Manager Susan Moffat proudly announce Tarragon Theatre's 2012-13 season, an all-Canadian lineup of premiere productions, recently premiered plays and classic works.

The 11-play season features some of the country's very best contemporary writers and includes a mini-festival of new works by Hannah Moscovitch; a Tarragon writing debut from David Yee; returning favourites David S. Young and Asha and Ravi Jain; and acclaimed work from Melody A. Johnson, John Mighton, Michel Nadeau and Morris Panych.

Tarragon's 2012-13 season highlights interconnectivity - on a personal and global scale. These are plays that travel the world - from a decrepit downtown apartment in Toronto that conjures memories of Cape Breton and Scotland, to a cataclysmic event that begins in Indonesia but reverberates around the planet. En route, they touch down in such differing locales as rural Ontario, India, Afghanistan and 19th century Vienna. The stories they tell may relay individual and separate experiences, but in the telling, they simultaneously reflect our commonality and connection.
IN THE MAINSPACE
No Great Mischief               
by David S. Young, adapted from the novel by Alistair MacLeod
directed by Richard Rose
SEPT 11-OCT 21, 2012 (OPENS SEPT 18)
"All of us are a little better when we're loved."
Haunted by the stories and songs of their Scottish ancestry, two brothers seek to reconcile their past in this sweeping saga of familial loss and love. A bittersweet rumination on the ties that bind, this evocative memory play takes us from a squalid Kensington Market rooming house to Cape Breton's stormy shores and the deep mines of Elliot Lake.

No Great Mischief premiered at Tarragon Theatre in 2004 and was subsequently presented in Ottawa, Vancouver and Halifax. Award-winning playwright, novelist and screenwriter David S. Young's other plays include Glenn, Inexpressible Island, Clout, Love is Strange and Fire (co-written with Paul Ledoux).
The Little Years                                                        
by John Mighton
directed by Chris Abraham
        
NOV 7-DEC 16, 2012 (OPENS NOV 14)
      
"You can't see the wind, only what it touches."

Growing up in the 1950s, Kate is fascinated by time and space, interests dismissed as unbecoming to a young woman of her time. While her brother achieves literary renown, Kate slowly abandons her dreams and heartbreakingly grows from precocious teen to troubled woman. Only her diaries shed light on her youthful self to her equally precocious young niece. An inspiring look at the many ways we touch each other's lives.
Originally produced by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 2010, it "may well be the best new play ever presented at Stratford" (National Post).

John Mighton, a Siminovitch Prize winner for Playwriting and one of the most original voices in Canadian theatre, returns to Tarragon after the acclaimed 2005 production of Half Life. His other plays include A Short History of Night, Possible Worlds and Scientific Americans.
The Amorous Adventures Of Anatol                        
by Arthur Schnitzler, adapted by Morris Panych
directed by Morris Panych
JAN 1-FEB 10, 2013 (OPENS JAN 9) Toronto Premiere
"The fact is, the woman you have in your life is never the woman you want."
The young, incurably romantic-and indecisively neurotic-Anatol pursues each woman as if she is "the one," without commitment or care. With Anatol's eye ever-wandering, the bemused Max tries to counsel his incorrigible friend. A contemporary re-visioning of Arthur Schnitzler's subversive play about a Viennese playboy, originally written in 1895.

Morris Panych is back with his trademark wit, adding to his long list of acclaimed black comedies presented at Tarragon including 7 Stories, Vigil, Lawrence and Holloman, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, Earshot, The Dishwashers and Benevolence. 

And Slowly BeautyŠ                                             
by Michel Nadeau in collaboration with Marie-Josée Bastien, Lorraine Côté, Hugues Frenette, Pierre-François Legendre, Véronika Makdissi-Warren and Jack Robitaille
Translated by Maureen Labonté
directed by Michael Shamata
FEB 20-MAR 31, 2013 (OPENS FEB 27)   Toronto Premiere
a Belfry Theatre/National Arts Centre English Theatre co-production 

"I never thought theatre could be as good as that!"

When Mr. Mann wins tickets to Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters in an office draw, he knows he must go - even though he rarely goes to the theatre. In those few precious hours, something unexpected stirs inside of him and his quiet yearning for happiness blossoms. A love letter to art.

Tarragon continues its long tradition of presenting English translations of acclaimed plays with this poignant and magical work from Quebec City's Théâtre Niveau Parking.
carried away on the crest of a wave     
by David Yee
directed by Nina Lee Aquino
APR 16-MAY 26, 2013 (OPENS APR 24)       World Premiere  

"Because we are all connected. And we are, none of us, alone."
A singular, cataclysmic event-the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami-illustrates the interconnectedness of all things. From an escort in Thailand to a Catholic priest in India to a housewife in Utah, this play asks, "what happens when the events that tie us together are the same that tear us apart?"
David Yee, a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon, is co-founder and artistic director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company. He debuts his first work for Tarragon on the heels of his beautiful performance in The Golden Dragon in the Mainspace (2012).
IN THE EXTRA SPACE 
Miss Caledonia                                                  
written and performed by Melody A. Johnson
directed by Rick Roberts and Aaron Willis
musical arrangements and original score by Alison Porter
OCT 16-NOV 25, 2012 (OPENS OCT 24)

produced by Lunkamud in association with Tarragon Theatre

 "Šit takes more than just luck, it takes skill and talent, and maybe a little hair tintin'."
Desperate to escape the stall-cleaning, hay-baling drudgery of 1950s life on Rural Route 2, Peggy Ann Douglas dreams of becoming a movie star. Can she sing, twirl and pivot her way into the hearts of the pageant judges to set her on her path? A 2010 SummerWorks hit.
The multi-talented Melody Johnson is well-known to Tarragon audiences-both as an actor and a writer-appearing in In the Next Room this past season, winning a 2003 Dora Award for her performance in Little Mercy's First Murder and premiering her musical Mimi, co-written with Rick Roberts and Allen Cole, in 2009.

A Brimful of Asha                                                       
written and performed by Asha and Ravi Jain
directed by Ravi Jain
NOV 28-DEC 16, 2012 (OPENS NOV 29)

a Why Not Theatre Production

 "You don't get to choose any member of your family: your brother, your father, your mother.
You are stuck with them till death do you part. Why do you need to choose your wife?"
This acclaimed (and very Canadian) laugh-out-loud true story returns after a sold-out extended run this past season. Real-life mother and son, Asha and Ravi Jain, tell the tale of how Ravi's parents planned a surprise trip to India to intercept him on his vacation and arrange his marriage. Ravi resents the intrusion but, as far as his parents are concerned, it's time for him to get a wife.
Ravi Jain is an award-winning actor, director, producer, and Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre. He has worked extensively in Toronto and internationally, winning a Dora Award for his performance in SPENT. He was the Urjo Kareda Resident Artist at Tarragon and at the Theatre Centre where he developed I'm So Close (SummerWorks 2009 Spotlight Award). Asha Jain is his mother and until A Brimful of Asha, had never set foot on a stage.
A MINI-FESTIVAL of four plays celebrating the work of
Tarragon Playwright-in-Residence Hannah Moscovitch

This Is War                                    
directed by Richard Rose
DEC 28, 2012-FEB 3, 2013(OPENS JAN 3)   World Premiere
"That's the thing about the desert. It makes you superstitious."
It is 2008. Canadian Forces are holding Panjwaii, the most volatile region of Afghanistan, with very little support from NATO-ISAF. Captain Stephen Hughes is always looking for the next threat, knowing it can come any time from any direction. He just didn't expect it would come from within. After Tarragon, the production tours to Prairie Theatre Exchange, Winnipeg.

A DOUBLE BILL:
FEB 14-MAR 24, 2013 (OPENS FEB 20)
Other People's Children / Little One in co-production with Theatre PANIK and Theatre Crisis
(Roseneath Theatre's In This World replaces Little One for the final week of the DOUBLE BILL)


Other People's Children        
directed by Paul Lampert
FEB 14-MAR 24, 2013 (OPENS FEB 20) World Premiere      

"Welcome. To Canada. To our house."
When Briony returns to work, she and her husband Richard hire a live-in nanny to care for their young daughter. At first, Briony is touched by how well her daughter takes to Sathi, but the strength of their bond quickly becomes alarming.
   ------------------------------
Little One                     
directed by Natasha Mytnowych
FEB 14-MAR 17, 2013 (OPENS FEB 20)      World Premiere         
"I have a lot of fond childhood memories of the whole family together in the ER."
Two adopted siblings grow up together in affluent Ottawa. Claire and Aaron love each other with all their hearts. But for some people, loving and destroying are the same thing. A new production of this stylish thriller, reworked since making a splash at SummerWorks 2011.   

In This World          
directed by Andrew Lamb

MAR 19-24, 2013
"You have to tell someone."
Roseneath Theatre's production of In This World is a complex exploration of race, class and sex as experienced by two urban, contemporary girls in high school.

Hannah Moscovitch is one of the most prolific playwrights of her generation and considered one of the strongest voices in the country. Her Governor General-nominated East of Berlin premiered at Tarragon to great acclaim, and toured successfully for two seasons. This prodigious young talent's most recent play, The Children's Republic, premiered at Tarragon this season to rave reviews.



Tarragon Theatre is proud to announce BMO Financial Group as its Season Sponsor for 2012-13.
Early Bird Subscriptions (with spectacular savings) and single tickets for the 2012-13 Season are on sale April 3, 2012. 
8-play subscriptions are available for as low as $155 and 5 plays as low as $100 if booked by May 31, 2012. Regular Subscription prices apply thereafter.
Subscriptions and tickets may be purchased by phone at 416-531-1827 or in person at the Tarragon Theatre Box Office, at 30 Bridgman Avenue.
BOX OFFICE & INFORMATION: 416-531-1827.  www.tarragontheatre.com


ABOUT TARRAGON THEATRE
Tarragon Theatre is known for its creation, development and production of new Canadian work. In over 40 years, more than 190 plays have premiered at Tarragon, including work by Morwyn Brebner, Kate Cayley, David French, Brendan Gall, Michael Healey, Ravi Jain, Wendy Lill, Joan MacLeod, Daniel MacIvor, Hannah Moscovitch, Morris Panych, James Reaney, Erin Shields, Jason Sherman, Judith Thompson and David Young, among many others. Tarragon presents new plays from all parts of the country, revives significant Canadian plays and produces international work, contemporary and classical. Tarragon has also been a pioneer in presenting Québecois plays in translation, notably works by Carole Fréchette, Michel Tremblay and Wajdi Mouawad. The theatre offers extensive play development programs and an active outreach and education department. For more information visit www.tarragontheatre.com

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