This fall, the country’s premiere producer of contemporary large-scale theatre - Canadian Stage - kicks off the 24.25 season with the Toronto Premiere of Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan’s celebrated play 1939, on stage September 15th to October 6th at the Berkeley Street Theatre.

Co-written by Lauzon and Riordan and directed by Lauzon, the powerful ensemble cast includes Brefny Caribou, Merewyn Comeau, Richard Comeau, Catherine Fitch, Nathan Howe, Amanda Lisman, Cheyenne Scott and John Wamsley.

In 1939, an English teacher, anticipating a visit by King George VI at a fictional Residential School in Northern Ontario, enlists her students in a production of All’s Well That Ends Well. But her rigid ideas of how Shakespeare should be performed are challenged as news spreads, audience expectations abound, and her Indigenous students start finding parallels between themselves and the characters in the play, setting out to make Shakespeare’s bitter-sweet comedy defiantly their own.

Initially produced in 2022 at the Stratford Festival, 1939 was born of both family legacy and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action and has been guided by Indigenous Elders, Survivors, and ceremony throughout its development.

“When 1939 first premiered it was immediately and rightly recognized as an essential and lasting entry into the canon of Canadian classics,” comments Canadian Stage Artistic Director, Brendan Healy. “While reminding us of the terrible history of the Residential School system, 1939 gives its characters the inspiring gift of agency within that context, allowing them to claim and re-cast a piece of colonial culture and transform it into a vehicle for their own determined self-expression. The play is beautiful, thoughtful, and witty, and we are thrilled to have it open our season.”

Lauzon and Riordan first began researching and developing the piece in 2017. Working with research dramaturg Sorouja Moll, they travelled to Sault-Ste-Marie, Kettle Point, and many spots in between to speak with Elders, consult archives, and visit sites of former Residential Schools. Jessica Carmichael then came on as dramaturg at the end of 2019.

Lauzon is joined on creative team by set designer Joanna Yu, costume designer Asa Benally, lighting designer Louise Guinand, and sound designer and composer Wayne Kelso – the originating design team on the production.

The first production of the 24.25 season is supported by Sandra Simpson in recognition of her generous gift to Canadian Stage’s Transformation Campaign. Thank you to performance underwriters Huw Evans and Kathryn Bird, M. Fainer, and the Remembering Otto and Marie Pick Charitable Foundation for their support of 1939.

1939 runs September 15th through October 6th at the Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley Street). Performances take place Tuesday through Saturday at 8:00pm with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00pm. Tickets are available beginning at $29 at canadianstage.com.

Photo: John Wamsley, Brefny Caribou and Richard Comeau. © 2024 Lorne Bridgman.