Stage Door News
Stage Door News
[Mississauga ON, October 2013] Theatre Erindale has announced the casting for its 2013-2014 “Uppity Women” season, set to open with The Crucible on October 25th. Season Memberships – featuring five mainstage plays plus the Beck Festival for the price of four – are selling rapidly.
The Crucible is one of the greatest dramas of the twentieth century. It is directed by special guest Aaron Willis of Convergence Theatre and the Stratford Festival, features the entire graduating class of the Sheridan-UTM Theatre & Drama Studies Program, and is already half way through rehearsal. During the Salem witch hunt, Christian Tribuzio and Megan O’Kelly (the cuckolded officer and his headstrong wife from In the Midst of Alarms) face off again as John Proctor and Abigail Williams, while Kaitlyn Alexander (Mistress Quickly in Midsummer Night’s Dream) as John’s wife Elizabeth is put on trial for her life. Their implacable adversary Governor Danforth, in another neat reversal of roles, is played by Victor Pokinko (Lysander in Midsummer Night’s Dream). Ben Hayward (Plummer in The Farndale … Macbeth) returns as Assistant Director.
Rebel Daughter, a world première collective adaptation based on the autobiography of Canadian feminist icon Doris Anderson, marks the ensemble debut of the third year class. The cast has been studying her book and related sources all summer and is now exploring their first drafts under the guidance of veteran guest director Heinar Piller (Stage Door, Love’s Labour’s Lost). Anthony Bastianon supervises music while Sarah Jane Burton does the same for movement, Meredith Scott (The Halifax Explosion) coaches on speech and dialect, and Paul Falkowski (Albert in Semi-Monde) assists the director.
The winter will feature three brilliant comedies written by women, each of which draws some cast members from the fourth and some from the third year class. The three shows will also share an adaptable set designed by company Artistic Director Patrick Young.
A Stitch in Time is an hilarious Feydeau farce reset in Montreal by translator Dorothy Lees-Blakey, and helmed by Sheridan’s David Matheson. Last season, Matheson assisted on the farcical version and directed the serious version of Macbeth, which set a new box office record for the company. Victor Pokinko returns with Alex Spyropoulos (Weird Sister in Macbeth) as the young couple whose marriage has set off on the wrong foot, while Brian Postalian (Thisbe in Midsummer Night’s Dream) plays their long-suffering butler. Seven other actors will be kept frantic slamming doors and mistaking identities, among them Mark Palinski (Ross in Macbeth), Megan O’Kelly, Natasha Ramondino, and Wes Payne (Puck in Dream).
The Canadian première of the brilliant rediscovered comedy-of-manners The Witlings, by popular novelist Frances Burney, will hit the boards in an acting version adapted for Theatre Erindale by director Patrick Young. After a shocking financial loss, the ‘hysterically overdramatizing’ young lovers in the story will be played by Sam Turner (Semi-Monde) and Mercedes Morris, both of whom appear this fall in Rebel Daughter. Christian Tribuzio returns as a misanthropist who turns out to have a heart of gold, while blocking the road to happiness will be Bailey Green as the pretentious Lady Smatter (fresh from Rebecca Nurse in Crucible). Contributing the most colourful characters to an overall cast of fourteen will be Kaitlyn Alexander as a motormouth landlady, Tomas Ketchum as her foppish tenant, Hannah Ehman as a horny widow, Mark Snetzko as a doddering old dad, and Jovan Kocic as a son with an eighteenth-century case of ADHD!
Now recognized as one of the great classics of Restoration Comedy, Aphra Behn’s The Rover was long excluded from the stage as too bawdy and rambunctious to have been written by a woman. In the midst of the Naples carnival, testosterone-fuelled sea captain Willmore (Nicholas Potter – Duncan in Macbeth) runs into feisty Helena, who is determined to escape the convent (Eliza Martin – Lady Macduff), and the dye is cast. But threats come not only from fierce Spanish nobles but from a love triangle with exotic courtesan Angellica Bianca (Chiamaka Ugwu – Weird Sister in Macbeth). Elsewhere in the cast of twenty, Cornelia Audrey (Dream), Eilish Waller, and Brittany Miranda play more naughty ladies, while the sword-fighting cavaliers are Adrian Beattie (Malcolm in Macbeth), Evan Williams (Theseus in Dream), and Roberto Esteves (Semi-Monde). Directing this romp is Dora-nominated special guest Melee Hutton, with fight direction by Daniel Levinson, choreography by Sarah Jane Burton, and assistant direction by Ali Richardson (Helena in Dream).
Single tickets for all plays have been held at $10-$15, while Memberships featuring a 20% discount – or one show FREE – remain at $40-$60. Memberships are a particular advantage, as many performances sell out. But hurry: the mail-in deadline is October 4th! Performances run Thursday to Saturday or Sunday, and parking is just $6.00. For tickets and further information, call the Erindale Studio Theatre Box Office at 905-569-4369 or visit www.theatreerindale.com .
UTM and Sheridan present “Uppity Women!” –
Theatre Erindale’s 2013-2014 Season
at the Erindale Studio Theatre
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 (free to Members!)
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: Theatre Orangeville. ©2006 Light Collector.
2013-09-30
Mississauga: Theatre Erindale announces season casting