Trout Stanley, Claudia Dey's award-winning play, will have its American premiere in a production presented by Renaissant Arts; the "comedy of Yukon
Gothic sensuality" will begin previews on Friday, May 19th, and open on Monday, May 22nd at The
Culture Project at 45
Bleecker (45 Bleecker Street at the corner of Lafayette Street), where
it will run through Sunday, June 11th.
The play first opened at the Ships Company Theatre in Nova Scotia, after which it moved to the Factory Theatre in Toronto. There, it enjoyed an extended sold-out run and was named Canada's Best Play by Toronto's Now Magazine and nominated for the Dora Award in the Best Play category.
Produced by Sarah Bagley, directed by Jen Wineman and starring
Kelly McAndrew,
Erika Rolfsrud and Warren Sulatycky,
Trout Stanley will feature lighting design by Tse Wei Lim, set design by
Tim Mackabee and costumes by
Caitlin O'Connor. The sound has been designed by
ElizaBeth Coleman. The show's original score has been composed by Andrew Shapiro and will also feature the music of Heart.
"Trout Stanley is the story of The Ducharme Twins and what happened to them on their thirtieth birthday which as it happens is also the tenth anniversary of their parents' unseemly and untimely double-deaths," state press notes. Grace and Sugar Ducharme live in a remote cabin in Northern British Columbia. Sugar, who presides over a figurine company, is a demure agoraphobic while Grace, the proprietor of the local dump, is more demonstrative. Grace finds the body of a murdered exotic dancer, while Sugar becomes entangled in a love affair with the title character, who has shown up at the twins' cabin.
"Drawn from Dey's experiences tree-planting in Northern Canada, the play resonates with the almost mythological characters and circumstances found in communities just on
The Edge of nowhere. Unique, passionate, and following its own set of rules, Trout Stanley inhabits a world much like that of the Coen Brothers and
Sam Shepard, while very much being its own."
Dey's other plays include
The Gwendolyn Poems and
Beaver. She is also a graduate of McGill University and
The National Theatre School, where she now works as a guest artist. Dey is currently writing a novel.
The show's performance schedule is: May 19th - May 22nd, Friday - Monday at 8:00 pm, and May 25th - June 11th, Thursday - Sunday at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $18, and can be reserved by visiting
www.smarttix.com or calling 212-868-4444.
