Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Richard Rose, Artistic Director of Tarragon Theatre and Managing Director Andrea Vagianos are pleased to announce the casting for the first three productions in Tarragon’s 2018/19 season. In the first half of Tarragon’s season audiences will be introduced to exciting new homegrown theatre creators and national collaborations between artists with a unique range of influences and backgrounds.
The season opens in September in the Mainspace with Harlem Duet from Governor General's Literary Award-winner Djanet Sears. This rhapsodic blues riff is a prequel to Shakespeare's Othello and whisks the tale off to Harlem, where a college professor (Beau Dixon) leaves his grad student wife (Virgilia Griffith) for a white colleague. An iconic work that packs as powerful a punch now as it did when it debuted over twenty years ago. Also featuring Walter Borden, Ordena Stephens-Thompson and Tiffany Martin. Directed by Djanet Sears.
The Extraspace season opens with Theory, a play from the Herman Voaden National Playwriting Competition winner Norman Yeung. Theory is a hot button play for our times. Isabelle, a young tenure-track professor (Sascha Cole), tests the limits of free speech by encouraging her students to contribute to an unmoderated discussion group. When an anonymous student posts offensive comments and videos, Isabelle must decide whether to intervene or to let the social experiment play out. Also featuring Anthony Perpuse, Asha James, Audrey Dwyer, Fabrizio Filippo, Bilal Baig and Kyle Orzech. Directed by Esther Jun.
Following in the Mainspace is the world premiere from Tarragon’s Bill Glassco Playwright-in-Residence and Governor General’s Literary Award-winner Jason Sherman. Sherman’s play, The Message, looks at the life of Canada’s internationally renowned professor-turned-prophet Marshall McLuhan (R.H. Thomson) whose observations on the effects of technology were cut short by a stroke that robbed him of his ability to speak. What it couldn’t do, though, was stop this deeply religious man from trying to finish his magnum opus: a last desperate attempt to save our souls — and his own. Also featuring: Patrick McManus, Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, Sarah Orenstein and Peter Hutt. Directed by Richard Rose.
Tarragon Theatre 2018-19 Fall Season Details
Harlem Duet
Written & Directed by Djanet Sears
September 18 – October 28, 2018
Mainspace
Featuring:
Walter Borden as Canada (Soulpepper's Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts I, II, III), Centaur/NAC's The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, Named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2006)
Beau Dixon as Othello (Tarragon's Hamlet, Soulpepper's Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Stratford Festival's Guys and Dolls, HMS Pinafore)
Virgilia Griffith as Billie (Soulpepper's Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Crow's Theatre's The Wedding Party, Theatre Calgary/NAC's ‘Da Kink In My Hair)
Tiffany Martin as Amah/Moana (Stratford Festival's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; The Aeneid; Love’s Labours Lost)
Ordena Stephens-Thompson as Magi (Soulpepper's for colored girls…, Factory Theatre's How Black Mothers Say I Love You, Canadian Stage's Another Africa)
Theory
Written by Norman Yeung
Directed by Esther Jun
October 16 – November 25, 2018
Extraspace
Featuring:
Bilal Baig as Davindar, (Theatre Passe Muraille's Acha Bacha)
Sascha Cole as Isabelle (Soulpepper's It’s a Wonderful Life)
Audrey Dwyer as Lee (Mirvish's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Studio 180/Mirvish's Clybourne Park, Obsidian Theatre's Black Medea)
Fabrizio Filippo as Omar (Tarragon's The Summoned, iThentic's Save Me)
Asha James as Safina (Tarragon debut)
Kyle Orzech as Richard (Mirvish's Arcadia, Theatre Direct's Beneath the Banyan Tree)
Anthony Perpuse as Jorge (SockMonkey's The Brothers Gentle (director), CBC's Working Moms)
The Message (World premiere)
Written by Jason Sherman
Directed by Richard Rose
November 7 – December 16, 2018
Mainspace
Featuring:
Peter Hutt as Feigen/Paul Klien (Tarragon's The Children’s Republic; Patience, Stratford Festival's The Merchant of Venice)
Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster as Margaret/Mary (Soulpepper's Incident at Vichy, Canadian Stage's The Flood Thereafter)
Patrick McManus as Gossage/Father Frank McReary (Tarragon's The Realistic Jones, Shaw Festival's Uncle Vanya)
Sarah Orenstein as Corrine/Ethel Cunningham (Tarragon's Scorched; Patience, CBC's Murdoch Mysteries)
R.H. Thomson as Marshall McLuhan (Tarragon's No Great Mischief, Necessary Angel's Inexpressible Island, CBC's Avonlea)
Twitter: @tarragontheatre
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Photo: Virgilia Griffith in Harlem Duet. ©2018 Jim Ryce.
2018-09-18
Toronto: Tarragon Theatre announces cast for Fall 2018/19