After its stunning sell-out NYC debut, Canadian Stage and Obsidian Theatre are proud to mount the first Canadian production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama FAIRVIEW, on stage at the Berkeley Street Theatre March 4 – 26, 2023. 

In FAIRVIEW, the Frasier household is preparing for Grandma’s birthday party, but not everything is as it seems. Beverly is holding on to her sanity by a thread, refusing help from sister, her brother is MIA, her husband doesn’t seem to do anything right, her daughter is late coming home from practice and the party guests are more than unexpected.

A radical examination of power, FAIRVIEW confronts notions of theatre, race, and surveillance.

This Canadian Premiere production is directed by Tawiah M'Carthy and features an ensemble that includes Peter N. Bailey, Sasha Cole, Jennifer Dzialoszynski, Jeff Lillico, Colin A. Doyle, Chelsea Russell, Ordena Stephens-Thompson, and Sophia Walker. M’Carthy is joined by a creative team that includes costume design by Rachel Forbes, lighting design by Logan Cracknell, set design by Jawon Kany, and sound design by Miquelon Rodriguez.

“We are thrilled to partner with Canadian Stage to present FAIRVIEW following our collaboration on Aleshea Harris’s IS GOD IS last year,” says Obsidian Theatre Artistic Director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu. “This potent play feels even more relevant now than it was when it was first scheduled for 2020. The conversation around how we view Black bodies on stage and who gets to consume Black stories is so crucial as we return to the making of live theatre in a post pandemic world. I hope the play unsettles and rattles and opens up important conversations that will reverberate for years to come.”

“We are so pleased to be partnering with Obsidian Theatre again this season on the Canadian premiere of this essential contemporary work,” says Canadian Stage Artistic Director Brendan Healy. “Jackie Sibblies Drury is one of the finest American playwrights today. In this potent exploration of race, Sibblies Drury brilliantly employs the experience of making and watching theatre as a metaphor for living and being. This is breathtaking theatre.”

FAIRVIEW premiered in June of 2018 Off-Broadway at Soho Repertory Theatre, then moving to Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California in the fall of 2018 with the production receiving universal critical acclaim. A New York Times Critics Pick, Ben Brentley called the play “dazzling and ruthless”, Time Out New York “unforgettable”, The New Yorker “outstanding, frustrating, hilarious” and New York Magazine said, “rare and intimidating.”

The play was the recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, describing FAIRVIEW as, “a hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors’ community to face deep-seated prejudices.” FAIRVIEW was also awarded the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in the same year.

Tickets for FAIRVIEW range from $29-$89. Single tickets are now available at canadianstage.com. This production runs from March 4th – March 26th with performances at 8:00pm Tuesday – Saturday, 2:00pm matinees Saturdays and Sundays and a 1:00PM matinees on March 15th and 22nd.

Photo: Chelsea Russell and Ordena Stephens-Thompson.