Stage Door News
Stage Door News
If you knew your time was almost up, what would you do?
If you’re an actor, like Ben, you might choose to perform Hamlet. Why? Or Not To Be, a new play by Andrew Batten, explores this fundamental question – what is the role of a lifetime? Why, given that we all have a limited time on earth, do some people choose to spend their lives making and/or experiencing art? And how do we love, help, enjoy and hang on to one another, knowing that one day we will have to say goodbye? Directed by Julia Haist, and featuring Shawn Desouza-Coelho, Andrew Robinson, and Karen Scobie, the play opens January 11 and runs to January 28 at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen St. E. Tickets are $20 ($15 for Seniors, Students and Arts Workers) and are available through the box office at 416-845-9411 or through Snapd Tix at https://beachdanforth.snapd.com/events/view/1108027. Or Not To Be is produced by Glass Hammer Productions.
Creative Team:
Shawn DeSouza-Coelho (Ben) is a writer based in Toronto, telling stories in whatever form they demand. He’s also a theater theorist/practitioner, associate director at the Informal Upright Theatre Collective, a professional magician, scholar, and sometimes poet. Shawn is the author of Whenever You're Ready: Nora Polley on Life as a Stratford Festival Stage Manager (Forthcoming May 18, ECW Press), the first biography of a stage manager ever published in North America. He is also the creator of The PoeTree Foundation, an art installation/charity that seeks to foster community engagement as well as provide financial assistance to those communities. He is currently writing and illustrating his third book, entitled 90 Days, which is a graphic novel about recovery from sex and pornography addiction.
Andrew Robinson (Seb) Other theatre: The Three Musketeers; The Merchant of Venice; Romeo and Juliet; Mother Courage and Her Children; King John; Antony and Cleopatra; Hamlet; Taming of the Shrew; Love’s Labours Lost; Shakespeare in Love; The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; The Aeneid (Stratford). Divorce Play; The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name (Rhubarb/Buddies in Bad Times). Dionysus in The Bakkhai (Hydrama, Greece). Recent credits include Recurring as Gus in the Web Series Shi**y Roommate and Andrew in Food ‘n’ Money (both written by and starring Daniela Pagliarello). Also this year, Andrew took a plunge into screen work landing The Strain (FX, Executive-Produced by Guillermo del Torro) and Murdoch Mysteries (Shaftsbury) which airs January 8th on CBC. While rehearsing Or Not To Be, Andrew also workshopped a new adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Stratford Festival). Awards include the Lindsay Thomas Award and a Tyrone Guthrie Award.
Karen Scobie (Sarah) Karen is a graduate of Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts and was recently seen playing the role of Vicki in emerGENce theatre’s production of Turtleneck in Toronto and Kingston. Other selected theatre credits include: Pepper in State of Women (Tandum Entertainment), Gwen in Number 27 (InspiraTO Festival) and Squirrel in When a Tree Falls (InspiraTO Festival). Karen can be seen in many short films online and in the films Unwavering Distances, Remember Me, Ending, Terminations and Diner Dames which are all set to release in 2018. To learn more, please visit her website http://www.karenscobie.com
Liz Currie (Stage Management) Liz is very excited to join the Or Not To Be team! Recent credits include: Echoes of the War (EOTW Collective) The Odd Couple (Jaybird), Hair (Jaybird), Evita (JDP Productions), Unsung Heroes: Camp Firesong, Unsung Heroes: Teen Edition, Blood Brothers (Jaybird), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Amicus), 4th Annual Unsung Heroes, August: Osage County (Alumnae), Stepping Out (Alumnae), and A Christmas Carol (CCP).
Julia Haist (Director) is a Toronto-based playwright, performer and director. A graduate of Humber College’s Theatre Performance program, she has interned with Humber College’s School of Creative and Performing Arts and the Playwrights Guild of Canada, and in 2014, completed the Summerworks Leadership Intensive Program. Since then, she has written, directed and performed with various Toronto companies, including multiple productions with Alumnae Theatre; most notably, directing Cottage Radio by Taylor Marie Graham and Or Not to Be by Andrew Batten. She has served as the stage manager at Children’s Peace Theatre for the past two summers, and in 2017, she performed and produced her self- written solo show This is Not She at the Montreal and Toronto Fringe Festivals. She is currently a student of The Second City’s Conservatory Program for comedy writing and improv.
Andrew Batten (Playwright) is a reformed lawyer and recovering teacher presently writing in Toronto. His previously produced plays include Romeo and Rosaline, The House of the Rising Sun, Even as Also I Am Known, and Jellied Salad. Andrew is a former playwright in residence at the Blyth Theatre. His latest script, Four Blisters, is scheduled for production in Toronto in the Fall 2018. Andrew is also an actor, having appeared on numerous stages around the city, and can next be seen in the upcoming production of Tainted Justice at the Village playhouse in March, 2018.
Photo: Andrew Robinson (left), Shawn DeSouza-Coelho and Karen Scobie. ©2017 Vic Finucci.
2018-01-03
Toronto: Andrew Batten's "Or Not To Be" plays the Red Sandcastle Theatre January 11-28