Stage Door News
Stage Door News
[Mississauga ON, January 2015] A dashing drifter, a beautiful girl, and the last day of summer … Kansas, 1952. The year in which Rocky Marciano wins the heavy-weight championship, Dwight D. Eisenhower wins the Presidency, and Elizabeth II assumes the throne. Gary Cooper is starring in High Noon, Samuel Becket is premiering Waiting for Godot, and Carson McCuller’s Ballad of the Sad Café has been in bookstores for a year. The hit parade is dominated by such artists as Patti Paige, Doris Day, and Dean Martin, all crooning silkily in glossy arrangements. But just over the horizon, fuelled by teenage hormones, the shotgun marriage of black rhythm and blues with country bluegrass is about to give birth to a phenomenon known as Rock ‘n Roll.
A typical kid in small-town Kansas is blissfully unaware of most of this, but Millie is not typical, and neither is her beautiful older sister Madge. Yet like most teenagers, they are both seeking the answers to who they are or could become. Around them as examples they have a number of older women, some of whom have made a truce with the tragedies in their lives, and others who will never come to terms with destiny until they become someone else. Then one day, after a long hot lazy summer, into their reality crashes a sexy prodigal who upsets the apple cart. And no one he touches will ever be quite the same.
William Inge has crafted in Picnic a masterfully funny, touching and sensual group portrait with the texture of real life. For it, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1953. It was the second of four Broadway hits in a row; the others were Come Back Little Sheba (1950), Bus Stop (1955), and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957) – each of which went on to become a successful film. In 1961, he won an Academy Award for Original Screenplay for Splendor in the Grass, starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. In the last two decades, his star has risen again, and he is now widely regarded as the fellow of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. The Wall Street Journal called him “one of this country's half dozen greatest playwrights ... worth traveling any distance to see.” Noteworthy productions of Picnic alone have been mounted by the Shaw Festival (2001), Chicago Writer’s Theatre (2008), and on Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre (2013).
Picnic stars half of the graduating actors of the Sheridan-UTM Theatre and Drama Studies Program, most recently seen in The Capulets and the Montagues. Choreography is by Sarah Jane Burton, fights by Daniel Levinson, costumes by Joanne Massingham, and both set design and staging are by longtime Artistic Director Patrick Young. Says Young, “it has been a real pleasure to explore this delightfully human play with a group of brave young actors who are beginning to mature in their craft.”
The show runs January 22 to February 1 at the Erindale Studio Theatre on the UTM campus, with evening performances Thursday through Saturday and matinees on Saturdays and on Sunday February 1. Single tickets are $12 or $18; Parking is $6.00, and Mississauga Transit Routes 44 and 110 will take you to the campus. For further information, call the Box Office at 905-569-4369 or visit www.theatreerindale.com .
PICNIC
by Willliam Inge
A dashing drifter, a beautiful girl, and the last day of summer …
Directed by Patrick Young
Preview Jan 22; Opening Jan 23; runs Jan 24 and 29-Feb 1
Thurs 7:30; Fri 8:00; Sat 2:00 & 8:00; Sun 1 Feb 2:00
$12.00-$18.00
Erindale Studio Theatre
(UTM 3 lights north of Dundas off Mississauga Road)
www.theatreerindale.com or 905-569-4369
Photo: Poster for Theatre Erindale’s production of Picnic. ©2015 Theatre Erindale.
2015-01-11
Mississauga: Theatre Erindale presents William Inge's "Picnic" January 22-February 1