| The Calgary theatre scene in 2002 saw so many memorable shows this year it is difficult to select a few highlights. The bad news is we have far more theatre companies than performance space, so we’re probably missing out on even more good theatre.
This will be remembered as the year that Pleiades Theatre became Vertigo Theatre and announced its future home at the bottom of the Calgary Tower. It will also be remembered for Mark Bellamy’s stylish production of Laura – this gem of a 1940s whodunit was presented with real panache.
Alberta Theatre Project’s PlayRites’ festival gave us four plays well worth seeing, and raised Steve Massicotte to national prominence – his sentimental charmer Mary’s Wedding went on to become the most produced play in Canada this season.
Ian Prinsloo showed us why Death of a Salesman is a classic, with Theatre Calgary’s passionate production of Arthur Miller’s most famous play.
Lunchbox Theatre hit gold with Clem Martini’s latest work, The Replacement, a funny and touching hour with a couple of lonely souls who find a new lease on life through a tremendously awkward dinner party.
Theatre Junction showed off its resident ensemble in two memorable productions – Closer, which shocked and thrilled audiences with its breathless action, and Jason Sherman’s It’s All True, the sweeping cinematic story about Orson Welles’s New York theatre company trying to stage a new socialist opera.
The year 2002 will also be remembered for: the 25th anniversary of Loose Moose Theatre; the opening of the Community Arts Centre at the old Currie Barracks; the Old Trout’s Beowulf; the growing cult following for the weekly improvised soap opera Dirty Laundry; the Calgary Fringe Festival, which has firmly redeemed the Labour Day weekend; and not one but two plays from Ground Zero Theatre about genitalia. |
