Stage Door News
Stage Door News
David Mirvish is pleased to present Pulitzer Prize-nominee Theresa Rebeck's comedy SEMINAR, a sparkling cocktail of ambition, power and lust—and one with an unexpected kick. Fresh from his his role in the celebrated new film ROOM (winner of the People's Choice Award at TIFF and considered a frontrunner for the Oscars), Stratford Shakespeare Festival Tom McCamus stars in SEMINAR .
SEMINAR plays Saturday November 14 through December 6 at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto. Media night is November 18. SEMINAR is a co-production with the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, where it plays at the Tom Hendry Warehouse in Winnipeg from October 21 through November 7 prior to the Toronto engagement.
Tom McCamus plays Leonard, a famous and acclaimed writer who now teaches private seminars at exorbitant fees to struggling, young, wannabe writers.
His four "pupils" are played by Andrea Houssin as Kate, Nathan Howe as Martin, Grace Lynn Kung as Izzy and Ryan James Miller as Douglas.
Hard-drinking and oversexed, Leonard has seen his once-prolific career wane. Still undeniably charismatic and indisputably harsh, Leonard's philosophy of teaching is to recklessly and cruelly throw the book at his students. His workshops become punctuated by professional envy, personal jealousy and sexual tension, leaving some students to thrive and others to flounder. But what happens when his pupils start to revolt?
The creative team includes Director Stewart Arnott, Set & Costume Designer Gillian Gallow, Lighting Designer Hugh Conacher, Sound Designer Michael Wright, Apprentice Director Frances Koncan, Apprentice Set & Costume Designer Darryl Audette, Stage Manager Melissa Novecosky and Assistant Stage Manager Alison Fulmyk.
SEMINAR originally opened on Broadway in November 2011 at the John Golden Theater, with Alan Rickman playing the role of Leonard.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Theresa Rebeck
Theresa Rebeck is an award-winning and widely produced playwright throughout the United States and abroad. Her work has appeared on various New York stages, including the Music Box Theatre, the Golden Theatre, The Biltmore Theatre, Second Stage and the Variety Arts Theatre. In addition to playwriting, Ms. Rebeck has had her work featured in American Theatre Magazine, The Harvard Review and has published two novels, Three Girls and Their Brother and Twelve Rooms with a View. In television, Ms. Rebeck created the NBC drama Smash and has written and produced for numerous successful television series including L.A. Law, Third Watch, Law and Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue — for which she won a Peabody Award. Ms. Rebeck is originally from Cincinnati and holds an MFA in Playwrighting and a PhD in Victorian Melodrama, both from Brandeis University.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Stewart Arnott
Stewart has had a long career in the theatre as a respected actor and director. His directing credits include the award-winning Tragedy: a tragedy in last year’s SummerWorks Festival (Spotlight Award for Best Ensemble; NOW Magazine: Outstanding Production, Direction and Ensemble); Same Time, Next Year (Lighthouse Festival); Amadeus and The Mystery of Irma Vep (Theatre Aquarius); Vincent River (Cart Horse Theatre); Pobby and Dingan (YPT); Unity (1918), Patience, It’s All True! and Democracy (Great Canadian Theatre Co.) and Master Harold...and the boys, Kilt, Strawberries in January and The Swearing Jar (Prairie Theatre Exchange). Running concurrently with Seminar is his production of Will Eno’s Title and Deed starring Christopher Stanton at Artscape Youngplace in Toronto. He is also a teacher, having directed and taught at George Brown Theatre School, Ryerson University Theatre School and the University of Waterloo.
ABOUT THE CAST
Tom McCamus - Leonard
Stratford Festival: selected: King John, The Matchmaker, Cymbeline, The Grapes of Wrath, Peter Pan, Dangerous Liaisons, Three Sisters, Timon of Athens, Richard III, The Threepenny Opera, Waiting for Godot, Coriolanus, Camelot, Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Elsewhere: Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (MTC), Hamlet, Divisadero (Necessary Angel); Misery (Canadian Stage); Thom Pain (Tarragon); Mathilde (Nightwood); Innocent Eye Test (MTC/Mirvish) . Film/TV: Room (Lenny Abrahamson), Cairo Time (Ruba Nada), The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (David Wellington), Possible Worlds (Robert Lepage). Awards: Dora Award, best actor: Abundance (Theatre Plus); Genie Award, best actor: I Love a Man in Uniform (David Wellington); Gemini and ACTRA Award, best actor: Waking Up Wally: The Walter Gretzky Story (Dean Bennett).
Andrea Houssin - Kate
Andrea is thrilled to be making her Toronto debut in Seminar. Recent theatre credits include Eve in Waiting for the Parade (Western Canada Theatre/Thousand Islands Playhouse), Kate in The Pirates of Penzance (Thousand Islands Playhouse), Munsch Upon a Time (Prairie Theatre Exchange), Good Intentions (Winnipeg Jewish Theatre), Sally Brown in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Project X), and Brutus in Julius Caesar (studio 58) . Andrea is a Winnipeg-based actor and a graduate of Studio 58.
Nathan Howe - Martin
Nathan is an actor/ playwright from Saskatoon . He has his BFA in Acting from the University of Saskatchewan and is a graduate of the Globe Theatre Conservatory. Recent acting: Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of The Shrew (Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan); Matchstick, It’s A Wonderful Life, Equivocation [SATAward for Performance] (Persephone Theatre); Two Corpses Go Dancing, Reasons To Be Pretty, The Frenzy Of Queen Maeve (Live Five); Salt Baby, The Wizard of oz (Globe Theatre). Writing: Matchstick (Persephone Theatre; upcoming GCTC), Aiden Flynn Lost His Brother So He Makes Another (Theatre Howl, Centaur’s Wildside Festival; upcoming Live Five), The Wild Dog Waits On The Concrete Path (Embrace Theatre), Look//See (Theatre Howl) .
Grace Lynn Kung - Izzy
A Canadian screen Award nominee for Best Lead Actress in a comedy, Grace Lynn Kung has studied in England and Canada. She is a Chancellor’s Trophy recipient (Ottawa School of Speech and Drama), two-time Award for Acting awardee and holds two certificates of distinction for speech and drama from Trinity College London. Screen accents: working on Guillermo Del Toro’s The Strain, scarcely keeping it together as Emily on Slings and Arrows, 12 Monkeys, succeeding Erica on Being Erica, Hypercube, Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, being interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos, special agent JoJo Kwan on InSecurity, Bank$tas, Blue State, House Party, working with Léa Pool on Lost and Delirious and possessing the power to turn humans into teddy bears on Odd Squad. Stage time: national tour of Kim’s Convenience, La Ronde (Soulpepper), English premiere of Yukonstyle (Canadian Stage), Blue Rivers by Judith Thompson, Paper Series (fu-Gen) and the world premiere of a nanking winter (Nightwood). Hodgepodge: you can Where’s Waldo Grace in Ikea’s Start The Car commercial, she is a Doozers character and if you’ve played Ubisoft’s Far Cry 4, you’ve heard her yelling at you.
Ryan James Miller - Douglas
Ryan began acting at the age of seven in a modest suburban home in Winnipeg. Coincidentally, this is also the age that Ryan began to drive the rest of his family crazy . After several independent theatre projects, Ryan received critical acclaim in his professional debut as Prior in the two part series, Angels in America (WJT) . Additional stage credits: The Glass Menagerie (RMTC), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily (RMTC), Gone with the Wind (RMTC), The Miser of Middlegate (TPM), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare in the Ruins) . Film/TV: Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure, My Awkward Sexual Adventure, The Pinkertons, Lovesick. On top of his many credits, Ryan is also a three-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee for his work with sketch comedy troupe, Hot Thespian Action.
SEMINAR
November 14 - December 6
Panasonic Theatre, 651 Yonge Street,
Toronto
Performance Schedule:
Tuesdays - Saturday at 8:00 PM
Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 PM
Added Wednesday matinee on November 18, at 2:00 PM
Added Sunday evening on November 29, at 7:00 PM.
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $19 - $89
Ticketking 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333
Online Ticket Sales: www.mirvish.com
Groups of 12 or more 416-593-4142
Twitter @mirvish Facebook: Mirvish Productions
Photo: Tom McCamus in Seminar. ©2015 Dylan Hewlett.
2015-10-21
Toronto: "Seminar" starring Tom McCamus starts performances at the Panasonic Theatre November 14