Stage Door News
Stage Door News
[Mississauga ON, June 2013] “Uppity Women?” Yikes! Why would Theatre Erindale title a season with a laughable expression for females who speak out, who break the rules, who refuse to spend their lives saying ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’? Well, because the company’s next season is especially about them, and even by them. And they’re not all saints: among those ‘uppity women’ are both heroes and villains.
In October 2013, Theatre Erindale will mount one of the greatest classics of the twentieth century, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. This blockbuster will be directed by Aaron Willis of Convergence Theatre and the Stratford Festival, and feature the ambitious new graduating class of the Sheridan-UTM Theatre and Drama Studies Program. It’s the powerful true story of the Salem witch trials, and of the handful of people who found the courage to stand up against the hysteria that was spread by a group of rebellious girls.
In November, the stage will be surrendered to a rebel from the other end of the spectrum altogether. Watch for the World Première collective adaptation of Rebel Daughter, the autobiography of Canadian icon Doris Anderson. Here was a crusader, born illegitimate and raised in the Depression, who edited Chatelaine for twenty years, chaired the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, and changed all our lives for the better. The show will be directed by Heinar Piller (Stage Door), past Artistic Director of the Grand, the Neptune, and George Brown Theatre School.
The Beck Festival of one-act Independent Student Productions is scheduled for the MiST Theatre December 12-14. It’s an unpredictable cornucopia of adventures in the theatre, from the hilarious to the original to the avante-garde, offered at Pay-What-You-Can prices and FREE to Members.
The Winter of 2014 will bring Theatre Erindale audiences three great comedies, each written in a different century by one of those ‘Uppity Women’. In January it’s Dorothy Lees Blakey’s Canadian adaptation of a masterful French farce by Georges Feydeau. Billed as ‘a poke in the wandering eye’, A Stitch in Time tells the tale of a young doctor’s hilarious attempt to cheat on his wife – and how it turns into disaster! Director David Matheson’s sensational production of Macbeth this spring set a new box office record for Theatre Erindale, and his independent company WordSmyth Theatre has just earned four Dora nominations.
February will reveal a masterpiece that was kept under wraps for 200 years! Though Frances Burney wrote the comic novels that inspired Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and though Samuel Johnson and Richard Brinsley Sheridan were among her fans, her male relatives would not allow her work to appear on the wicked stage. Not until the last twenty years were her plays discovered, and acclaimed as “some of the finest comedies of the eighteenth century.” Theatre Erindale’s landmark production of The Witlings, helmed by Artistic Director Patrick Young, will be the Canadian Première!
And in March, the company will finally tackle one of the greatest and most outrageous of Restoration Comedies. Aphra Behn’s The Rover depicts Spring Break Italian-style, as horny youngsters of both genders descend on Naples at carnival time, with sex and violence around every corner. Swordfights! Disguises! Seductions! Courtesans! – the world’s first professional woman writer created a party that never stops! Attempting to keep a rein on the festivities will be special guest West End actor and Dora-nominated director Melee Hutton.
Theatre Erindale’s 2012-2013 “Mayhem!” season set new records both for attendance and for acclaim, with more sold-out performances than ever before. Yet next year the company will stick with its astonishingly low prices to say “thank you for putting up with the construction mess next door for one more season.” Single tickets will stay at $10-$15, while Memberships featuring a 20% discount – or one show FREE – will stay at $40-$60. Both go on sale in August. Performances run Thursday to Sunday, and parking is just $6.00. For further information or a free colour brochure, call the Erindale Studio Theatre Box Office at 905-569-4369 or visit www.theatreerindale.com.
UTM and Sheridan present Theatre Erindale for 2013-2014:
“Uppity Women!”
THE CRUCIBLE
by Arthur Miller, directed by Aaron Willis
OCTOBER 24—NOVEMBER 3, 2013
REBEL DAUGHTER
adapted by the Company from the autobiography of Doris Anderson under the direction of Heinar Piller
NOVEMBER 14—24, 2013
THE BECK FESTIVAL
MiST Theatre DECEMBER 12—14, 2013
A STITCH IN TIME
by Dorothy Lees-Blakey with Brian Blakey, directed by David Matheson
JANUARY 23—FEBRUARY 2, 2014
THE WITLINGS
by Frances Burney, adapted and directed by Patrick Young
FEBRUARY 13—MARCH 2, 2014
THE ROVER
by Aphra Behn, adapted by Nancy Copeland and Patrick Young, directed by Melee Hutton
MARCH 13—23, 2014
www.theatreerindale.com or 905-569-4369
Photo: Scene from In the Midst of Alarms. ©2012 Theatre Erindale.
2013-06-14
Mississauga: Theatre Erindale’s theme for its 2013/14 season is “Uppity Women”