| ALBERTA THEATRE PROJECTS 2006-07 SEASON
When Calgary last saw 10 Days on Earth by Ronnie Burkett, it was a staged reading of a play in development for the International Festival of Animated Objects. Now, though Toronto’s CanStage will have the show’s first run, Alberta Theatre Projects will be Burkett’s next stop, kicking off their 2006-07 season.
It’s an auspicious beginning, with Burkett being one of the brightest theatre talents in the country, if not the world, and a perennial Calgary favourite. The story of a mentally challenged man whose mother, his sole caretaker, passes away without his knowledge begins a season artistic director Bob White has said focuses on love of all kinds, which certainly speaks to Edward Albee’s provocative The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? the second platform play in ATP’s season.
Winner of the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as a host of other accolades, Albee’s play exploits a conceit – a successful man and his love affair with a goat – that might seem comic (think Eugene Wilder in (Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask), but has certainly captured the attentions of theatergoers with its surprisingly sobering take.
Departing to a land removed from bestiality, ATP’s holiday production will be Jeffrey Pitcher’s adaptation of the classic children’s story by J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan – perhaps banking on the swashbuckling success of this year’s Treasure Island. Then, fairies and belly-ticking crocodiles out of the way, it will be time to usher in the new year, and new work.
January 31 will begin the run of ATP’s crown jewel, the playRites Festival, showcasing all-new Canadian work – with some familiar faces from previous festivals. The mainstage shows will include Linda Griffiths’s 5 Odd Women and 1 Man, a play that examines the Victorian notion that the typewriter might be a force for liberating women; Ron Chambers’s The Knowing Bird, addressing the niche issue of a fat man resolving his relationships with his daughter; and Colleen Murphy’s The December Man, a portrait of one of the male survivors of the infamous December 14, 1989 Ecole Polytechnique massacre. On the playRites second stage, local composer David Rhymer’s Why Freud Fainted, which enjoyed a staged reading at this year’s playRites festival, is currently the production announced.
Following the festival, presented jointly with Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador, Robert Chafe’s Tempting Providence is a biographic look at the life of British nurse Myra Bennett and her journey from outsider to Canadian hero. Chafe’s work was last seen in Under Wraps at One Yellow Rabbit’s 2000 High Performance Rodeo.
The season concludes with a remounting of local playwright and former ATP writer-in-residence Eugene Stickland’s Sitting on Paradise, the story of a successful Calgary businessman named Ron who tries to escape the material constraints of his life, beginning with the sale of a few extraneous items. First premiered at 1996’s playRites, the play’s restaging represents one of those stories that "find their time," according to White, as Calgary increasingly becomes a caricature of materialistic culture.
A solid lineup of award-winning plays and promising new works, ATP’s new season is a safe bet, but by no means tame – mature puppet drama, goat affairs and all. But with none of the plays cast, White offering an open invitation to actors who haven’t "drank the Kool-aid at Theatre Junction" – a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the company’s new, permanent company of artists – and the second BD&P stage show still unannounced, ATP’s upcoming season still has a few surprises to come. |
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