Stage Door News
Stage Door News
[Mississauga ON, November 2011] Theatre Erindale’s Beck Festival of one-act plays – formerly known as “On the Fringe” – is coming up December 8-10. The festival has been re-named in honour of generous longtime supporters and co-founders Roger and Janet Beck. It takes place at the MiST (“Multi-media Studio Theatre”) in the CCT Building on the lovely campus of the University of Toronto Mississauga, starting each night at 7:00PM. Parking just downstairs in the CCT Garage is only six dollars. And the ticket price is Pay-What-You-Can!
The Beck Festival is an evening of theatre for the adventurous, produced on a shoestring budget by students from all four years of the joint Sheridan-UTM Theatre and Drama Studies Program. This year it includes four wildly different short plays – from the sublime to the ridiculous – one of them an original musical!
The perfect “curtain-warmer” to start the evening off is David Ives’ classic twenty-minute comedy Sure Thing, produced by Brittany Kay. Charlotte Cattell directs Kay and Brandon Gillespie as Betty and Bill, who meet by chance in a café. They proceed to pick their way through a conversational minefield – as an offstage bell resets every false start, gaffe, and faux pas on the way to falling in love!
Next is a specially abridged fifty-minute version of David Gow’s disturbing drama Cherry Docs, directed by Marcus Haccius. (The film version, retitled Steel Toes, starred Academy Award-winner David Strathairn.) This is a fiery tale of a court-appointed Jewish lawyer (Owen Fawcett) assigned the task of defending a neo-Nazi skinhead (Jake Maric) who has been accused of a brutal, racially motivated murder. In developing his defence, the lawyer is forced to examine the limits of his own liberalism and the demons underlying it. Cherry Docs is an unblinking examination of hatred, the explosive effect it has on our society, and the hurdles that confront us as we set about eradicating it.
That’s succeeded on the MiST stage by a wacky world première written entirely (book, music, and lyrics) by Emily Johnston – Untitled: The Musical. Look for some off-the-wall humour and the silliest tunes you’ve heard in years, as the performers in a new musical sing about their inner thoughts rather than their lyrics. The show is produced by Michelle Nash and directed by Heather Dennis with a “cast of thousands” from all four years – and you may never watch a musical the same way again!
And rounding out the evening is a challenging and mysterious one-act by one of the greatest playwrights of the twentieth century, Harold Pinter. Ashes to Ashes, produced and directed by Julio Ospina with Jessica Allen and Jack Morton, poses more questions than it does answers. Is Devlin Rebecca’s lover? Her husband? Her therapist? Or perhaps even her murderer? And are her dreams really illusions? Or literal reality? (By intriguing coincidence, the original New York production of the play also starred David Strathairn!)
The evening is the perfect exam break for students, and an entertaining early night out for theatre fans of all descriptions. It starts at 7:00PM and will be over by 10:00PM, Thursday to Saturday December 8-10. Tickets are sold only at the door – first come first served – and the price is Pay-What-You-Can (recommended minimum $5.00; FREE to Theatre Erindale Members). Parking downstairs in the CCT Garage (approached through Lot 9 at the south end of the campus) is $6.00, and the elevator to the Ground floor opens directly onto the MiST Lobby! For further information, call the Erindale Studio Theatre Box Office at 905-569-4369 or visit www.theatreerindale.com.
THE BECK FESTIVAL 2011
Theatre Erindale's Festival of One-Act Independent Student Productions
December 8-10 at 7:00PM
Tickets at the door: Pay-What-You-Can (recommended minimum $5)
MiST Theatre, CCT Building, UTM
(for the CCT Garage, turn off Mississauga Road North at the Collegeway to the Outer Circle Road and Lot 9)
www.theatreerindale.com or 905-569-4369
2011-11-29
Mississauga: Theatre Erindale’s “Beck Festival” runs December 8-10