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20th anniversary production of home-grown
international hit reunites:
Morris Panych, Peter Anderson and Ken MacDonald from the
original award-winning team,
November 9 to December 5
TORONTO DATES:
Previews: November 9 – 11
Opening Night: November 12
Closing Night: December 5
SCHEDULE:
Monday-Saturday at 8 p.m.;
matinees Wednesday 1:30 p.m.
and Saturday 2 p.m.
LOCATION:
Canadian Stage – Bluma Appel Theatre
27 Front Street E., Toronto
TICKETS:
From $20.
Available online at canstage.com,
by phone via Canadian Stage 416.368.3110,
or in person at Customer Service Centres: Berkeley Street
Theatre, 26 Berkeley Street; or Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front
St. E., Toronto.
"Hilarious leap into
laughter"
Calgary Herald (October
2009)
"sweet and funny…with a
wry incongruity "
The New York
Times (2008)
"Panych mixes Magritte, Sartre, Woody Allen, and the Book of
Job with Buster Keaton and Magic Realism. It’s special chemistry with special
results"
CBC Radio Vancouver
(1989)
Toronto, ON — The Canadian Stage Company continues its
2009/2010 Season with the 20th anniversary production
of 7 Stories, the first bona fide international
hit play by two-time Governor General’s Award-winner Morris
Panych. 7 Stories, a touchingly funny surrealist
comedy, tells the life-affirming story of a man searching for
meaning. The 20th anniversary production of the iconic Canadian
play, directed by Dean Paul Gibson, reunites the original
trio of playwright Morris Panych, actor Peter Anderson
and designer Ken MacDonald. A Canadian Stage Company
co-production with Theatre Calgary, 7 Stories
runs November 9 to December 5, 2009 (media night:
November 12) at Toronto’s Bluma Appel Theatre
(27 Front Street East) immediately following a three-week run in
Calgary. For tickets and information, contact
416-368-3110 or canstage.com.
7 Stories is a home-grown success story. Panych wrote
the play because he was interested in exploring "the grotesquely
wonderful and relentlessly fantastic aspects of human
behaviour." Originally produced in 1989 by Vancouver’s Arts Club
Theatre, it became Panych’s "break-through" play
and established him as a major voice in Canadian theatre. The
play has been produced across Canada, in New York, London,
Sydney, Budapest, Tokyo and Seoul, and has been translated into
three other languages including Japanese, Korean and Hungarian.
It won six Jessie Richardson Awards (1990) including Outstanding
Original Play, Outstanding Production and Outstanding Set
Design; four Dora Mavor Moore Awards (1991);
and was a finalist for the Governor
General’s Award.
To jump or not to jump? That is the question one man faces on
the seventh-story ledge of an apartment building in this
quick-paced, absurdist comedy. Before he can make a decision, he
encounters the building’s eccentric tenants through nearby
windows. As he desperately tries to get on with minding his own
business, he becomes a reluctant participant in the dilemmas of
those around him. He comes to realize that everyone one of them
has a reason to jump - and that he may be the most rational of
them all.
"The dark humour, existential themes and exploration of the fine
line between fantasy and reality that would go on to become
Panych’s trademarks are very much on display in this early
work," states The Canadian Stage Company’s Artistic & General
Director Matthew Jocelyn. "This play is a delightfully absurd
look at the trivialities of everyday life and the ways in which
we strive to imbue that life with meaning. While skewering the
mundane preoccupations of modern society and exposing the
self-centeredness and hypocrisy of its citizens, Panych manages
to express a very loving and hopeful perspective on the human
condition."
Morris Panych is one of Canada’s most significant
contemporary playwrights; he has written more than 25 works for
the stage and adapted more than a half dozen others. He has also
directed as many as 100 productions and appeared in over fifty
stage plays and in numerous television and film productions.
The Canadian Stage Company has produced four of his plays:
What Lies Before Us, Vigil, The Overcoat and presently
7 Stories. He has also directed a number of productions for
the Company including The Overcoat, Habeas Corpus, Take Me
Out, Amadeus, Sweeney Todd and Hysteria. Panych has
garnered two Governor General’s Literary Awards for Drama (the
country’s most prestigious literary honour); one in 1994 for his
play The Ends of The Earth and another in 2004 for The
Girl in the Goldfish Bowl. He has won 14 Jessie Richardson
Awards (Vancouver), three Sidney Riske Writing Awards
(Vancouver), and five Dora Mavor Moore Awards (Toronto). He was
also nominated for the Chalmers Award for The Cost of Living,
Vigil and Lawrence and Holloman. His plays 7
Stories, Vigil and Girl in the Goldfish Bowl
have been produced in over a dozen languages and mounted
throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia, Australia and New
Zealand. His groundbreaking work The Overcoat, which he
co-created and directed, toured worldwide to great acclaim, and
its film version, directed by Panych, won an honourable mention
at the Prix Italia. In 2008 Panych made his Stratford
Shakespeare Festival directorial debut with his highly
successful adaptation of Moby Dick. In the same year he
directed A Little Night Music for the Shaw Festival and
premiered two new works, Benevolence at Tarragon Theatre
in Toronto and The Amorous Adventures of Anatol at
Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company. In 2009 he returned to the
Stratford Shakespeare Festival to direct the premiere of his
latest work, The Trespassers. Upcoming: Panych will be
directing Parfumerie for Soulpepper Theatre Company,
‘Art’ by Yasmina Reza for The Canadian Stage Company and
Vigil for ACT in San Francisco.
7 Stories stars Peter Anderson in the
Jessie-nominated role that he created 20 years ago. Anderson is
best known to Canadian Stage audiences for his touching
portrayal of The Man in Morris Panych and Wendy Gorling’s
acclaimed The Overcoat, which was presented by Canadian
Stage in 2000, toured internationally and then returned to the
Bluma stage in 2007. Joining Anderson are four versatile actors,
each playing several different roles, including Damian Atkins
(Frost/Nixon, Amadeus, The Glass Menagerie, Sweeney
Todd, Into the Woods as actor; Lucy as playwright)
Christopher Hunt (Tartuffe, Glorious!),
Melody A. Johnson (Habeas Corpus) and Rebecca
Northan (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
The creative team includes director Dean Paul Gibson last
seen at Canadian Stage performing in The Overcoat, set
designer Ken MacDonald (The Overcoat, What Lies Before
Us, Habeas Corpus, Take Me Out, Vigil, Amadeus, Sweeney Todd,
Hysteria) who created the original Magritte-inspired set for
the premiere production, costume designer William Schmuck
(Suits), lighting designer Alan Brodie
(Frost/Nixon, Little Shop of Horrors, Glorious!, The Overcoat,
Vigil), original music & sound designer Peter Moller,
vocal coach Jane MacFarlane, stage manager Darragh J.
Parsons, assistant stage manager Kelsey ter Kuile and
assistant director Alexandra Prichard.
The Canadian Stage Company is nationally and internationally
acclaimed and 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 work at the Berkeley Street Theatre to
productions with popular appeal at the Bluma Appel Theatre and a
summer of Shakespeare at the TD Dream in High Park. Canadian
Stage has a long-standing commitment to education and
enhancement programs for the public, nurturing theatre
professionals, and developing new Canadian plays, while
producing thought-provoking theatre and high quality
entertainment in Toronto, one of North America’s largest theatre
centres. For more information, refer to
canstage.com.
Upcoming in The Canadian Stage Company’s 2009.2010 season is
That Face by Polly Stenham, produced by Nightwood Theatre
in co-production with Canadian Stage (Oct. 26 – Nov. 21 at
Berkeley); Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage, an
Obsidian Theatre production (Feb. 8 – Mar. 6 at Bluma); The
Overwhelming by J.T. Rogers, a Studio 180 Theatre
production in association with Canadian Stage (Mar. 8 – Apr. 3
at Berkeley); ‘Art’ by Yasmina Reza (Mar. 15 – Apr. 10),
This is What Happens Next by Daniel MacIvor and Daniel
Brooks, a Necessary Angel production (April 12 – May 8 at
Berkeley) and Catalyst Theatre’s Frankenstein (April 29
– May 29 at Bluma).
7 Stories Production Sponsor: BMO Harris Private Banking
7 Stories Community Accessibility Sponsor: SUN LIFE
FINANCIAL
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