Stage Door News
Toronto: Coal Mine Theatre’s Vault Creation Lab reveals its first presentations
Monday, January 20, 2025
Following the announcement in November that COAL MINE THEATRE co-founder Diana Bentley was launching a new sister company to the COAL MINE, THE VAULT CREATION LAB is thrilled to unveil their inaugural line up of public lab presentations, which will get underway on the Danforth this spring.
An ambitious, new initiative helmed by Artistic Director Bentley, THE VAULT CREATION LAB is a space in which writers, creators and playwrights are afforded the opportunity to explore, experiment and invest in their ideas in the critical stages of development. Creative teams will have access to space, resources, technical elements, and public presentations centering audience feedback, to develop and uncover the complete potential of their work. THE VAULT will also launch a writers' membership program in the fall of this year.
"This is such a bold time in Toronto theatre,” comments Bentley. “Post-pandemic, audiences are invested and curious, and artists are hungry to test their creative limits. THE VAULT’s innovative public labs are a chance for playwrights to interact with an audience at the critical development stage, when a play is ready for feedback and audience exchange. Playwrights can test new writing and script changes throughout the course of a run and the audience is in on the journey."
THE VAULT Public Lab programming for 2025:
A LITTLE CLOSER
Written by Michael Ross Albert
Direction/dramaturgy by Diana Bentley
Starring Breanna Dillon, Farhang Ghajar, Cameron Laurie, and Annie Lujan
April 3, 4, 5 at 7:30pm and April 6 at 2:00pm
The carefully structured life of a professional cuddler begins to unravel as the strangers he welcomes into his home force him to confront his darkest secrets.
DISCOUNT DAVE AND THE FIX
Written by Rebecca Auerbach
Direction/ dramaturgy by Aviva Armour-Ostroff
Starring Rebecca Auerbach
May 29, 30, 31 at 7:30pm and June 1 at 2:00pm
When a rockstar crashes the backstage party at a Shakespeare festival, a thrill-seeking young actor is set on a path of self-reckoning. A provocative blend of truth and fiction, DISCOUNT DAVE AND THE FIX is a suspenseful, hilarious and harrowing examination of our obsession with celebrity, how addiction can bury our wounds, and what it takes to heal.
REPRODUKTION
Written by Amy Rutherford
Direction/ dramaturgy by Marie Farsi
Live sound design by Maddie Bautista
August 19, 20, 21 at 7:30pm and August 22 at 2:00pm
An epic, moving and funny new play about infertility and creation, REPRODUKTION explores the ancient imperative to procreate and how to find meaning in our lives in the face of impossibility. When a woman undergoes an alternative form of fertility treatment that is "guaranteed to reproduce," a surprising and dangerous transformation occurs in which she reproduces multiple versions of herself, for this lab experiment, composer Maddie Bautista will be recording and mixing live throughout the show, reproducing the play's soundscore in real time, each night.
For more information about THE VAULT visit www.thevaultcreationlab.ca.