Stage Door News
Barrie: Talk Is Free Theatre announces it fall programming
Thursday, October 7, 2021
Today, TIFT Artistic Producer Arkady Spivak announced details of the company’s Fall Season that will see a return to indoor venues. TIFT’s fall programming boasts a wide-variety of in-person productions that utilize a myriad of performance styles to make bold statements and initiate impactful conversations about how we communicate.
Running from October 28 to December 12, 2021, patrons will have the opportunity to experience thoughtful and perspective-shifting theatre. Productions joining the previously announced transfer of Into the Woods to Toronto’s historic Winter Garden Theatre include two pieces by international theatre pioneers that demonstrate the power of language through creative, boundary-pushing approaches; two newly adapted works making their world premieres; and a compelling historical drama about the love, betrayal and path of destruction walked by one of the most influential artists of the 19th century.
TIFT’s programming in Barrie continues to be free (except Museum of Fiction, presented in partnership with the Barrie Film Festival) and is subject to an updated free admission policy. To read the policy changes, please refer to the bottom of the release.
While complete details of the Winter season will be released next month, TIFT is also thrilled to offer a sneak peek at two works. These include an in-person and virtual reality hybrid experience based on a short story by Virginia Woolf, and the in-person premiere of a gripping solo performance about self-discovery.
Further Details of the fall programming
October 28 - 30, 2021
The Winter Garden Theatre, Toronto
Noah Beemer, Tess Benger, Aidan deSalaiz, Griffin Hewitt, Germaine Konji,
Derek Kwan, Richard Lam, Jamie McRoberts, Tracy Michailidis, Glynis Ranney and others
in
The Winter Garden Theatre, Toronto
Noah Beemer, Tess Benger, Aidan deSalaiz, Griffin Hewitt, Germaine Konji,
Derek Kwan, Richard Lam, Jamie McRoberts, Tracy Michailidis, Glynis Ranney and others
in
Into the Woods
Book by James Lapine
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Michael Torontow
Orchestral Adaptation by Wayne Gwillim
Band Led by Chris Tsujiuchi
Original Choreography by Lori Watson
New Choreography by David Andrew Reid
Set and Lighting Design by Joe Pagnan
Costume Design by Laura Delchiaro
Sound Design by Matt Dawson
Book by James Lapine
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Michael Torontow
Orchestral Adaptation by Wayne Gwillim
Band Led by Chris Tsujiuchi
Original Choreography by Lori Watson
New Choreography by David Andrew Reid
Set and Lighting Design by Joe Pagnan
Costume Design by Laura Delchiaro
Sound Design by Matt Dawson
TIFT’s hit production of the Sondheim and Lapine classic musical, starring beloved Brothers’ Grimm characters searching for their ‘happily ever after,’ transfers to Toronto’s historic Winter Garden Theatre for a very limited time. In this intimate retelling, the cast play several distinct fairytale favorites on their musical journey to discover that what they wish for most is not necessarily what they need.
The fairytale experience will be enhanced by the special guests attending each performance. Each patron is requested to bring with them two stuffed toys to ensure proper social distancing protocols and occupy seats between them and the next group of patrons. A small number of toys will be available on the premises in exchange for a donation to the Actors’ Fund of Canada.
November 5 - 13, 2021
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
Museum of Fiction
I. EMPIRE
Video installation performance art piece by Matías Umpierrez
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
Museum of Fiction
I. EMPIRE
Video installation performance art piece by Matías Umpierrez
“Artistic soulmates who refuse to be typecast, Robert Lepage and his protégé Matías Umpierrez borrow from various disciplines to furnish their eclectic, maverick productions.” – Robert Cushman.
Matías Umpierrez blends various mediums together into a unique experience that offers a fresh perspective and opens a new dialogue in the Canadian premiere of Museum of Fiction. This unique adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth will immerse the audience in 1990’s post-dictatorship Spain, where media and propaganda have become a tool to spread fiction, fear and used to control the masses. Starring Robert Lepage.
In partnership with the Barrie Film Festival.
November 16 - 20, 2021
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
Un Poyo Rojo
Directed by Hermes Gaido
Created by Hermes Gaido, Alfonso Baron, Nicolás Poggi and Luciano Rosso.
Choreography by Nicolás Poggi and Luciano Rosso
Performed by Alfonso Barón and Luciano Rosso
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
Un Poyo Rojo
Directed by Hermes Gaido
Created by Hermes Gaido, Alfonso Baron, Nicolás Poggi and Luciano Rosso.
Choreography by Nicolás Poggi and Luciano Rosso
Performed by Alfonso Barón and Luciano Rosso
"The grace, athleticism, precision and comic timing of both Poggi and Rosso are immaculate" - The Stage Door
Argentina's Un Poyo Rojo has toured and performed to sold-out audiences internationally for over 10 years and will bring their provocative crossover between acrobatics, dance and humour to a Barrie audience. Un Poyo Rojotakes body language to new heights and explores the limits of modern language that invites the audience into a new world of possibilities.
Jealousy, rivalry and desire erupt between two men in a gym locker room, which becomes an arena that pits masculine identity against spiritual potential.
November 23 to 26, 2021
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
She Visits
Translated, adapted and performed by Maja Ardal
Inspired by Der Besuch der Alten Dame by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Directed by Jeff Braunstein
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
She Visits
Translated, adapted and performed by Maja Ardal
Inspired by Der Besuch der Alten Dame by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Directed by Jeff Braunstein
She Visits is set in a small town suffering the economic impact of an unspoken world event. A terrible temptation arrives in the form of a rich old woman who once lived there.
Maja Ardal’s version of this story pinpoints the inequality of women in the legal system. It addresses how easily an impoverished community craves monetary wealth, and scrambles to re-invent truth to achieve it.
She Visits was commissioned as part of The Eternal Ego Festival, an initiative to create daring adaptations of multi-character works and performed by a single actor.
December 3 - 12, 2021
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
Aidan deSalaiz and Noah Beemer
in
The Judas Kiss
Written by David Hare
Directed by Billy Lake
At the height of his popularity with the triumphant premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest, famed poet and playwright Oscar Wilde is forced to choose between his heart and his freedom as he is targeted for imprisonment, humiliation and destruction by the brutish Marquess of Queensberry.
Starring Aidan deSalaiz as Oscar Wilde, Noah Beemer as his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, with David Ball, Justan Myers and others, The Judas Kiss is a compelling drama that follows Wilde as he is immersed in scandal and the consequences of betrayal by those he held most dear.
December 2021
Performance dates and times will be announced in November.
Live streamed
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Written by Luigi Pirandello
Conceived and performed by Richard Lam
Directed by John Lachlan Stewart
Performance dates and times will be announced in November.
Live streamed
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Written by Luigi Pirandello
Conceived and performed by Richard Lam
Directed by John Lachlan Stewart
A play rehearsal is interrupted when six mysterious characters from a yet-unwritten play arrive and beg to be given life through the acting company.
In Richard Lam and Jon Lachlan Stewart’s 2021 interpretation, and in a quick return to an online platform, a man who has been alone in his apartment for the entire COVID-19 pandemic finds the everyday objects in his apartment animated by the spirits of all the great art he has failed to create during his solitude. Bringing household items to life through object puppetry, Lam and Lachlan Stewart will give a fresh theatrical voice to this 20th-century modernist classic.
Six Characters in Search of an Author was developed as part of The Eternal Ego Festival.
February and March 2022
Performance dates and times will be announced in November.
Five Points Theatre, Barrie
Orlando
Adapted by Sarah Ruhl
Based on the novel by Virginia Woolf
Created and performed by Merlin Simard and Raven John
Set in the 1600s, Orlando undergoes a mysterious sex-change and inexplicably lives for over 300 years into modern times. Orlando’s adventures take them across countless countries and visits with royalty family members, poets and persistent suitors.
Presented as a Virtual Reality (VR) and physical reality performance hybrid, Orlando is the journey of a time-travelling trans girl stuck in an Elizabethan tech multi-verse.
Orlando was developed as part of The Eternal Ego Festival.
March 2022
Performance dates and times will be announced in November.
Untitled Flamingo Play
Written by and starring Nathaniel Hanula-James
Making its in-person premiere, Untitled Flamingo Play is an irreverent solo-performed production about coming out and queer identity.
Populated by an eclectic cast of characters, including a moustache-twirling flamingo, a queer child searches for a role model in a big scary normative world full of divas, bullies, and toxic masculinity.
Ticket Information:
Admission to all TIFT programming in Barrie is free (except for Museum of Fiction, which is a presented work in partnership with the Barrie Film Festival). Tickets for individual productions will be available for booking one month prior to the opening night of that production. Tickets for Museum of Fiction will be on sale starting October 15, 2021. All Producer’s Circle members and donors of $100 or more enjoy an exclusive one week booking period before tickets are available to the general public. Certain restrictions on ticket amounts apply to all bookings. Please visit TIFT’s donor page here for more details.
Changes to the Free Admission Policy:
Patrons who book tickets under the free admission policy agree to TIFT’s new notice of cancellation. Patrons will now be required to notify the box office at least 48 hours prior to the performance date to avoid the “no-show charge” of $25 per ticket. For more details about the company’s free admission policy, please click here.
COVID-19 Admission Protocols:
In accordance with the mandate from the Government of Ontario effective September 22, 2021, Talk Is Free Theatre patrons will require proof of full vaccination for COVID-19 and government issued identification before entry to any indoor theatre venue, including The Five Points Theatre.
Social distancing and masking will still be in effect until further notice. For more information about protocols and safety measures, please visit here.