Shakespeare, The Beatles and Steve Martin share in Theatre Calgary's 2023-24 season

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For its 56th season, Theatre Calgary goes to let massive names like Agatha Christie, Steve Martin, The Beatles and Shakespeare share the limelight with Alberta playwrights Farren Timoteo, Anna Cummer, Geoffrey Simon Brown, Maria Crooks and Caroline Russell-King.

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This July and August, Shakespeare by the Bow will as soon as once more be Shakespeare on the Go as a troupe of seven rising artists will take Cummer’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night time’s Dream to varied places across the metropolis. Theatre Calgary’s creative director Stafford Arima insists it’s his firm’s dream to finally return to their nook of Prince’s Island Park however development woes close to the park made it too tough this yr.  He praises Cummer’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy, saying “It’s such a enjoyable and witty adaptation performed in a vaudevillian fashion that has the actors doubling and even tripling in roles.”

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TC’s primary stage season of seven performs launches on the Max Bell Theatre on Sept. 12 with Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, directed by Craig Corridor. Arima is happy as a result of “that is the primary time in TC’s historical past we’ve performed a Christie and what higher one to do than her most well-known and hottest. I referred to as Vertigo Theatre’s creative director Jack Grinhaus and informed him what we have been contemplating, and he generously gave us his blessing. He’s not doing a Christie this coming season.”

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From Oct. 17 to Nov. 11, TC will current Alberta playwright and actor Farren Timoteo’s solo present, Made In Italy, in The Martha Cohen Theatre, residence of Alberta Theatre Initiatives. This present, which has been touring to nice success since 2016, tells the story of Timoteo and his household dwelling in Jasper within the Seventies. “It is a tour de pressure efficiency by which Farren performs each member of his household and it’s one Calgarians ought to have the chance to see. We would have liked a extra intimate area than the Max Bell Theatre to showcase it and the Martha Cohen was accessible. Theatre Calgary has beforehand performed reveals in varied theatres in Arts Commons, together with The Huge Secret Theatre, The Engineered Air Theatre, ATP and The Jack Singer.” It is going to be directed by Daryl Cloran, creative director of Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre.

Starting Nov. 28, TC’s vacation traditional, A Christmas Carol, returns in what Arima calls “its full glory.”  It’s the Geoffrey Simon Brown adaptation first seen in 2019 and it consists of about 70 folks working backstage between the forged, crew and dressers. There will likely be one massive change to the present within the position of Scrooge. “Stephen Hair is retiring his pink scarf so we’re searching for a Calgary actor to switch him however Stephen will at all times be part of TC’s Christmas Carol custom,” mentioned Arima.

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He calls Steve Martin’s surreal comedy Meteor Bathe, which opens Jan. 23 within the Max Bell Theatre, “an awesome, hilarious play about relationships. It’s a sort of modern retelling of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It’s an exquisite option to introduce Calgarians to Steve Martin, the playwright. We all know him extra as an actor and humorist however he’s additionally an completed playwright.”

On Feb. 27, 2024, TC will current Daryl Cloran’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, which options the music of The Beatles. First produced in 2021 for Vancouver’s Bard on the Seaside, Cloran’s jukebox mashup of Shakespeare and The Beatles has wowed audiences i
n Edmonton and Chicago and is again at Bard on the Seaside till Sept. 30. “Daryl’s adaptation showcases a few of The Beatles’ biggest hits in one among Shakespeare’s hottest comedies,” says Arima.

From April 9-28, TC, in affiliation with ATP, will current the world premiere of Selma Burke by Calgarians Maria Crooks and Caroline Russell-King. The play is concerning the Black American sculptor who performed a significant position within the Harlem Renaissance motion of the Nineteen Twenties and Nineteen Thirties. After studying this script, Arima determined to current a workshop studying for Black Historical past Month in February. He says the response from the general public, the board, and the creative staff was so enthusiastic he determined the play deserved a full manufacturing. “It’s such a robust, joyous play, it has the potential of reaching American audiences.” Arima is happy that this would be the first collaboration with ATP. “It is a constructive step in a path we must be taking. Pooling our assets won’t solely profit the play but in addition our two corporations.”

Arima says he’s nonetheless “crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on contracts for the ultimate play however it will likely be a musical and one that’s based mostly on a highly regarded film. We should always have the ability to announce it later subsequent month.”

Season ticket subscriptions are on sale now at theatrecalgary.com and single tickets will go on sale in August.

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