TORONTO, ON – Harbourfront Centre is thrilled to announce the World Stage 2009-10 line-up, another daring array of diverse performance works. From October, 2009 through May, 2010, a diverse series of world-class theatre and dance, multimedia, music and more attest to Harbourfront Centre’s commitment to providing audiences with unrivalled performing arts.

With innovative works from local visionaries and vanguard artists from around the globe, World Stage offers Toronto audiences access to a selection of productions at the forefront of contemporary performance. Artists who challenge the boundaries of their métier yet remain accessible to audiences, whether well-seasoned aficionados or budding enthusiasts, are vital to World Stage. Harbourfront Centre is also proud to partner once again with The Theatre Centre’s Free Fall Festival ’10 in the spring of 2010.

World Stage 2009-10 Ticket Information
Tickets are on sale to the public June 12, 2009 and Harbourfront Centre offers many incentives for ticket buyers to see great shows at discounted prices. For a limited time, the popular World Stage Flex Pass returns, offering tickets at up to 50 per cent off regular prices, available only until Oct. 6, 2009. Ticket buyers can also purchase packages with discounts ranging from 10 to 20 per cent off regular prices.

New for World Stage 2009-10 is the Performance Card: ticket buyers who are under 25 or over 65 years of age, or who are arts industry professionals, can obtain the card for free which qualifies the bearer to one $15 ticket per show during weekday performances (Tues. – Thurs. only).

Complete information about single tickets and packages, the Flex Pass, the Performance Card and additional information is available through the Harbourfront Centre box office by phone at 416-973-4000, or by visiting harbourfrontcentre.com.

Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage 2009-10 Season Line-Up

The Walworth Farce
Druid (Ireland)
Oct. 6 – 10
Fleck Dance Theatre
World Stage launches with the Canadian premiere of playwright Enda Walsh’s acclaimed dark comedy about a father and his two sons who have been acting out the same farce in their squalid London apartment for 20 years. As their play within a play unravels, the destructive secrets that have kept the family together come into ghastly focus.

Necessary Angel’s Hamlet
presented by BMO
Necessary Angel Theatre Company (Canada)
Nov. 19 – 29
Enwave Theatre
A highly anticipated world premiere, this play previewed as a workshop to sold-out audiences in November 2008. Toronto’s Necessary Angel pairs up with provocateur Graham McLaren (former artistic director of Scotland’s Theatre Babel) to direct this rendering of Shakespeare’s classic Hamlet. Gripping, violent, immediate and seething with amorality; a radical version of one of the greatest plays in the theatrical canon.

To Be Straight with You
DV8 Physical Theatre (England)
Dec. 2 – 5
Fleck Dance Theatre
DV8's artistic director Lloyd Newson leads a multi-ethnic cast in a poetic but unflinching exploration of tolerance, intolerance, homophobia, religion and sexuality. A powerful new production based on hundreds of hours of audio interviews collected throughout the UK with people directly affected by these issues. Incorporating dance, text, documentary, animation and film.

roadkill
Splintergroup (Australia)
Feb. 3 – 6
Enwave Theatre
A North American premiere of dance-theatre from Brisbane-based trio Splintergroup. A couple is stranded in the harsh Australian outback with a car that won’t start, a phone that doesn’t work and a stranger who seems a little too eager to help. With unorthodox physicality and intense drama, roadkill takes the form of a road movie that examines the folklore and paranoia surrounding the outback.

Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen
Ontroerend Goed and Kopergietery (Belgium)
Feb. 16 – 20
Enwave Theatre
A wild bunch of teenagers create and perform Once and for all... a physical piece of theatre that challenges clichés about adolescents. Filled with a manic enthusiasm that manages to offer poignant understanding of youth, its joys and dilemmas; this show will close in 2010 as the teens will be too old to perform it – they will be adults.

Rebecca Northan in Blind Date (Canada)
Feb. 23 – Mar. 6
York Quay Centre
The runaway hit the Toronto Star (4 out of 4 stars) hailed as "[a] mixture of uproarious laughter, honest sexuality and genuine emotion" returns by popular demand to World Stage. Mimi (Rebecca Northan) is a young Parisian woman waiting for a blind date in a café. When she is stood up, she turns to a complete stranger in the audience in search of someone brave enough to answer love’s call.

Do Animals Cry
Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods (Germany/Belgium)
Mar. 3 – 6
Fleck Dance Theatre
Last seen at Harbourfront Centre in 1994, U.S. born and Europe-based choreographer Meg Stuart returns with her amazing company Damaged Goods and Do Animals Cry. Fascinated with imperfection, Stuart delves into the complex relationships of parents and children, revealing the disconnections at the heart of every family.

Loin...(Far...)
Rachid Ouramdane L’A (France)
Mar. 11 – 13
Enwave Theatre
The Canadian premiere of Loin... (Far...) is a multimedia solo dance performance from French artist Ouramdane that retraces the steps of a journey made by his Algerian father 50 years ago. Drawing from the diary his father kept while serving in the French Army, Ouramdane considers the layered and ever-changing nature of identity.

On the Side of the Road
Theatre Junction (Canada)
In partnership with The Theatre Centre’s Free Fall Festival ‘10
Mar. 24 – 27
Fleck Dance Theatre
A story of secrets and family set against the sprawling Alberta landscape, On the Side of the Road centres around a young novelist who returns to his family cottage with his Parisian girlfriend to confront his past and the murky depths of identity. This is the first foray for Calgary’s Theatre Junction into Eastern Canada.

relay
Ame Henderson Public Recordings (Canada)
Apr. 7 – 10
Enwave Theatre
A world premiere from Toronto-based dance maker and artistic director of Public Recordings, Ame Henderson enlists a team of international collaborators to celebrate and challenge notions of dance and memory. This new work borrows from memories of dances to question the politics and possibilities of being – and whether it is possible to move together without abandoning individuality.

Giselle
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre (Ireland)
May 4 – 8
Fleck Dance Theatre
Fabulous Beast is an international ensemble led by Irish director and choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan. This radical reinterpretation of the romantic ballet, a Canadian premiere, is a moving two-step between the forces of laughter and disaster, blending speech, song and superb choreography in an uncompromising production on the very edges of theatre and dance.