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The Canadian Stage Company's 2008-2009
Season will feature multi-award-winners Donna Feore and
Seana
McKenna
- Donna Feore to direct stage adaptation of It’s a
Wonderful Life -
- Seana McKenna to star in Pulitzer Prize-winning play
Doubt, a Parable -
Toronto, – Dora Award and two-time Tyrone Gutherie Award-winner Donna
Feore (Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Oliver! and
Oklahoma!) will direct the stage adaptation of It’s a
Wonderful Life (November 24 to December 20, 2008)
in her Canadian Stage debut. Canadian Stage Company
alumna Seana McKenna will star in Doubt, a
Parable (May 4 - 30, 2009), heralded as the most
powerful theatrical event of the decade. The productions are
part of The Canadian Stage Company’s 2008-2009 season and will
be staged at the Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto. Further
casting details to be announced at a later date.
"I am thrilled to be part of this terrific 2008-2009 Canadian
Stage season," states Donna Feore. "I am excited to work on this
unique adaptation of such a beloved film."
Donna Feore is a 16-year veteran of the Stratford
Shakespeare Festival whose credits include directing
Oklahoma!, Oliver!, Evangeline and
choreographing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The
Adventures of Pericles, My Fair Lady, The Threepenny Opera, The
Three Musketeers, Pride and Prejudice and Alice Through
the Looking Glass. Other credits include directing the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s production of Mozart: A Life in
Letters and the musical Annie Get Your Gun at Massey
Hall. She choreographed CBC TV’s Triple Sensation,
Getting Along Famously and Elizabeth Rex and the
Canadian Opera Company’s critically acclaimed Siegfried -
part of Wagner’s Ring cycle - and Oedipus Rex, which
earned her a Dora Mavor Moore Award. Film and television
choreography and directorial credits include the opera films
Romeo and Juliette and Don Giovanni Unmasked; the
television movies Eloise, Stormy Weather and Martin
and Lewis; and the films Mean Girls and Beautiful
Girl.
Seana McKenna is a three-time Dora Award-winner (acting
in Orpheus Descending and Saint Joan; directing
Valley Song), a Jessie Award-winner (Wit for
Vancouver Playhouse/Canadian Stage), Genie Award-winner (The
Hanging Garden) and an unsolicited Tyrone Guthrie
Award-winner. Ms. McKenna starred in The Canadian Stage
Company’s production of The Clean House this past spring
and has starred in the Canadian Stage productions of Lucy,
Boy Gets Girl, Wit, Odd Jobs, The Show-Off, Benefactors, The
Road to Mecca. A 17-year veteran of the Stratford
Shakespeare Festival, she is currently appearing in the Festival
productions The Trojan Women and Fuente Ovejuna.
Other stage credits include A Streetcar Named Desire, Born
Yesterday, Dancing at Lughnasa, Hedda Gabler, Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof (MTC); Candida, Pygmalion (Shaw); Vincent in
Brixton (Vancouver Playhouse); Boston Marriage
(Merrimack Rep, Massachusetts). She has also performed at
Tarragon, Theatre Passe Muraille, TNB, Blyth, The Neptune, The
Grand and The National Arts Centre. TV credits include the BBC
mini-series Burn Up, CTV’s The Eleventh Hour,
HBO’s Handel’s Last Chance and CBC TV’s Opening Night
and Margie Gillis: Wild Hearts in Strange Times.
It’s a Wonderful Life is the staged radio dramatization of
Frank Capra's Academy Award-nominated iconic holiday classic.
Playwright Philip Grecian brings a new dimension to the story of
George Bailey, the unsung, well-loved hero of Bedford Falls.
It’s a Wonderful Life began as a short story, was
famously made into a film, was broadcast on the radio and has
recently been ingeniously realized as a staged radio play. An
ensemble of actors portrays dozens of characters from the movie,
with sound effects created live on stage, utilizing techniques
dating back to the golden age of radio.
Doubt, a Parable, to be
directed by Marti Maraden, is the recipient of the
2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony, Drama Desk, New York Drama
Critics’ Circle, Outer Critics Circle and Obie Awards. Created
by American playwright John Patrick Shanley, the Academy Award-winning author of Moonstruck,
Doubt, a Parable is the Broadway
and West End sensation that took New York and London
critics by storm. It was voted best new play of the year by
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Time
Magazine. Set against the backdrop of a Bronx Catholic
school in 1964, the production is a gripping, suspense-filled
tug-of-war between a popular priest and a strong-minded nun who
suspects her colleague of improper conduct with a student.
The controversial play dramatizes issues
ripped from today’s headlines and tackles themes of religion,
morality and authority.
2008-2009 Season
At the Bluma Appel Theatre:
Frost/Nixon (Oct. 13 to Nov. 8, 2008), directed by Ted
Dykstra and starring Broadway legend Len Cariou and Dora
Award-winner David Storch;
It’s a Wonderful Life (Nov. 24 – Dec. 20, 2008)
directed by Donna Feore; Miss Julie: Freedom Summer (Feb.
9 – Mar. 7, 2009), directed by Stephen Sachs and starring Dora
Award-winner Caroline Cave;
Shirley Valentine (Mar. 23 – Apr. 18, 2009), directed
by Roy Surette with Nicola Cavendish reprising her Dora
Award-winning performance
Doubt, a Parable(May 4 – 30, 2009), directed by
Marti Maraden and starring Seana McKenna. At the Berkeley
Street Theatre: Nightwood Theatre’s Wild Dogs (Oct. 4
– Nov. 8, 2008); Studio 180’s Blackbird (Mar. 9 – Apr. 4,
2008); Necessary Angel and WYRD’s HARDSELL (Apr. 13 – May
9, 2009), directed by Daniel Brooks and starring Rick Miller.
Subscription Packages + Ticket
Information
Subscription packages are on sale now.
Single tickets on sale September 2008. For subscription or
ticket information, please contact The Canadian Stage Company
Box Office at 416.368.3110, online at canstage.com
or in person at our two locations 26 Berkeley Street or
27 Front Street East.
About The Canadian Stage Company
Nationally and internationally acclaimed, The Canadian
Stage Company is Canada’s leading not-for-profit
contemporary theatre company. Founded in 1987 with the merger of
CentreStage and Toronto Free Theatre, the Company is dedicated
to programming international contemporary theatre and to
developing and producing landmark Canadian works which have been
awarded some of the country’s most prestigious literary and
performing arts honours, including the Governor General’s,
Chalmers and Dora Mavor Moore Awards. The Company presents the
richest variety of Canadian and international plays and musicals
– from edgy and provocative works at the Berkeley Street Theatre
to productions with universal appeal at the Bluma Appel Theatre
and a summer of Shakespeare at the CanStage TD Dream in High
Park. With a long-standing commitment to education and
enhancement programs for the public, nurturing theatre
professionals, and developing new Canadian plays, Canadian Stage
plays an essential role in bringing thought-provoking theatre
and high quality entertainment into the lives of millions in
Toronto, one of North America’s largest theatre centres. For
more information, refer to canstage.com.
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Canadian Stage Company's
