Calculated crowd-pleasers
Alberta Theatre Projects announces its 2002-03 season
The 2002-03 season at Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) will be an eclectic one, boasting six new contemporary plays as well as four new scripts by emerging playwrights in the PlayRites festival. According to the company's artistic director, Bob White, it’s the very thing the audience has asked for.
"It’s a response to what we’ve heard from ‘the fans,’" he says. "They really do enjoy a variety of different kinds of work. That’s what we’ve tried to do in programming. They’re all substantial works and worthy of consideration, but they do indeed skip all over the emotional map."
· The season kicks off with a play currently being produced throughout North America. Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the 2001 Tony Award for best play, David Auburn’s Proof is both back-porch Americana drama and detective story.
· Morris Panych’s Earshot, starring Randy Hugheson, will be presented in co-production with Vancouver Playhouse. This odd little piece from Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre is a comical story of a lovelorn man saddled with oversensitive hearing.
· Another Toronto hit that will be in ATP's lineup is Factory Theatre’s Zadie's Shoes by Adam Pettle. This is a comic take on the nature of luck and the power of faith from the perspective of a cancer patient and her compulsive gambler husband.
· As usual, Christmas audiences will enjoy family oriented fare. This year it’s a prairie classic, W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind?
"One of the great things about this adaptation by Lee MacDougall is that it is extremely truthful to the spirit of the novel," explains White. "He’s framed the nostalgia in a way that isn’t sentimental. It should be all things that you want a Christmas show to be without being overly treacly and sweet."
· The four mainstage plays for the PlayRites festival in January will emphasize emerging writers. Two of these, Mieko Ouchi’s The Red Priest and Evelyne de la Cheneliere’s Strawberries in January, were given staged readings as Platform Plays at this year’s PlayRites. Pageant by Daniel Macdonald and The Plum Tree by Mitch Miyagawa will complete the schedule.
· Later, just to prove that musical comedies can be written about absolutely anything, there will be J.J. McColl’s Menopositive! The Musical, a celebration of menopause from Vancouver’s Firehall Arts Centre that was an unlikely hit on the coast – ATP is hoping Calgarians will find it equally appealing.
· Closing the season is Flying Blind, a co-production from Axis Theatre, Belfry Theatre, the Arts Club and Australia’s Legs on the Wall. This extraordinary piece of physical theatre takes the audience on a trip to another dimension where performers become airborne, glide through space and walk on walls.
"There is a nice balance between character-driven plays and domestic drama," says White. "Between Proof and Zadie's Shoes and the sort of high theatricality of Earshot and Flying Blind, there’s a conscious effort to do mainstream stuff balanced with some highly theatrical stuff people will find amazing." |
