Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Toronto, October 9th, 2013 – Crow’s Theatre in association with Canadian
Stage present Winners and Losers, an exhilarating, playful, and brutally
honest two-hander produced by Vancouver’s Theatre Replacement and Neworld
Theatre in association with the producers of the Dora-winning Someone Else.
Winners and Losers will run in Toronto from Sunday, November 10 to Sunday,
December 8 (Opening night November 14) at the Berkeley Street Theatre (26
Berkeley St.). Tickets from $22 to $49 are available by phone at
416-368-3110, online at www.crowstheatre.com, www.crowstheatre.com,
at www.canadianstage.com, www.canadianstage.com, or in person at
the box office.
Winners and Losers is a staged conversation that embraces the ruthless logic
of modern-day capitalism, and tests its impact on our closest personal
relationships. Theatre artists and long-time friends Marcus Youssef and
James Long sit at a table and play a game they made up called “winners and
losers,” in which they name things and people — Pamela Anderson, microwave
ovens, Goldman Sachs, their fathers — and debate whether, from their
perspective, these things are winners or losers. As the conversation
unfolds, the competition quickly begins to have an unanticipated cost.
Winners and Losers is written and performed by Marcus Youssef of Neworld
Theatre and James Long of Theatre Replacement, and directed by 2013 Dora
winner Chris Abraham of Crow’s Theatre. Youssef and Long do not play
characters in the show, they are themselves, playing a game that explores
terrain from the shallow and pithy to the political and then the deeply
personal – a game that assumes that for someone to be a winner, someone else
has to lose. The show is performed on a nearly bare stage - the set a table
and two chairs - putting the entire focus on the shifting power dynamics
between the players.
Crow’s Theatre Artistic Director, Chris Abraham, who just last year
announced the company’s plans to open a new 14,000 square foot theatre
facility in Toronto’s East-End, sees the partnership with Theatre
Replacement and Neworld Theatre as exemplative of the expanded vision for
the company, as cultural hub and curator of a new season of contemporary
theatre that will introduce a new audience in Toronto’s east-end to
outstanding contemporary theatre artists.
”In the last few years, Crow’s has sought out collaborations with theatre
companies across the country that are also wrestling with our culture’s
pivotal narratives - stories that shine a light on the important tectonic
issues shaping our society. This season’s partnership with Vancouver’s
Theatre Replacement and Neworld Theatre invites us to look at competition as
a primary force in human relationships, as well as our strange cultural
fascination with the categories of winner and loser.”
Abraham continues, “When Marcus and Jamie invited me to Vancouver, to check
out the new piece they were writing about competition, capitalism, and
friendship, I had no idea what to expect. After my first encounter with the
piece I was hooked. It was at once the conversation you desperately do and
desperately don’t want to have with your friend. I was deeply entertained
and upset. The care they took in creating a portrait of their friendship
and the risk they were taking putting it on the line, made the piece too
interesting to pass up. I can’t wait to share this unique experience with
Toronto audiences.”
Winners and Losers first premiered at the Gateway Theatre in Richmond, BC in
late 2012 and then went on to play Vancouver’s PuSh International Performing
Arts Festival to critical acclaim in January of 2013 and to win the Jessie
Richardson Critics’ Choice Innovation Award. The show has since toured
internationally to countries including Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the
Netherlands, and the UK, as well as playing dates in Montreal and Ottawa.
About Winners and Losers:
Written and performed by Marcus Youssef and James Long
Directed by Chris Abraham
Lighting by Jonathan Ryder
Production management by Elia Kirby
Facebook: facebook/crowstheatre
Twitter: @crowstheatre
Hashtag: #winnersandlosers
Photo: Marcus Youssef and James Long. ©2013 Dan Toulgoet.
2013-10-09
Toronto: "Winners and Losers" by Marcus Youssef and James long runs at Canadian Stage starting November 10