Peter Hinton to Direct Factory's BOMBAY BLACK

Poetic, mythic, and brave - Factory presents BOMBAY BLACK by Anosh Irani, directed by Peter Hinton, and presented with an all-male cast starring Kawa Ada, Howard J. Davis, and Azeem Nathoo. Part of Factory's Naked Season, this revival ofBOMBAY BLACK will focus on Irani's evocative text and the transformative power of performance.

"The actors will tell the story with the full range of their craft, truthfully and believably, requiring the full and active use of the audiences' imaginations to grasp with the mythic nature of this tragedy ... all must be imagined - gender too," director Peter Hinton explains.

Anosh Irani's multiple Dora Award-winning BOMBAY BLACK is a searing play set in the bitter reality of present day India, exploring the harsh world of exotic dancing in Mumbai. A knock at the door of Apartment 4A brings the brutal and complex past of the three characters to light. At turns funny, violent and humane, Peter Hinton helms this revival with a gritty contemporary perspective.

"In 2015 we bring many questions about gender and its construction to our presentation of stories and societies," Hinton continues. "This staging of BOMBAY BLACK is an invitation to revel in the Naked concept in an essential way, putting all the focus on the text and the actors while also reflecting the maleness of the playwright and the powerful depictions of the women in the play."

BOMBAY BLACK, originally commissioned and developed by Nightswimming Theatre, received its world premiere in 2006, produced by Cahoots Theatre Projects. Reviewed to great acclaim, the production was nominated for six Dora Awards and won four, including Outstanding New Play. In 2007, the play was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award for Drama.

Anosh Irani was born and raised in Bombay, India and moved to Vancouver in 1998. He is the author of the acclaimed novelsThe Cripple and His Talismans and The Song of Kahunsha, which was a finalist for CBC Radio's Canada Reads and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, was published in thirteen countries, and was a bestseller in Canada and Italy. Irani was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for The Bombay Plays: The Matka King & Bombay Black.

Considered one of Canada's finest stage directors, Peter Hinton has been an integral part of the Canadian theatre landscape for over 30 years. An officer of the Order of Canada, Hinton comes to Factory immediately following the premiere of Funny Girlat the Segal Centre in Montreal. He regularly directs at both the Shaw Festival (Pygmalion, Cabaret, Lady Windermere's Fan,When the Rain Stops Falling) and Stratford Festival (The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare's Universe, The Odyssey, Fanny Kemble, The Duchess of Malfi, Into the Woods, The Swanne Trilogy), where he has also served as Associate Artist. He has experience with re-examinations of classical texts through the flipped perspective of gender by casting both The Taming of the Shrew (Ottawa Shakespeare Festival) and The Witch of Edmonton (Equity Showcase Theatre) with all female casts.

BOMBAY BLACK features performances by Dora-Award winner Kawa Ada as Apsara (Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Soulpepper Theatre; Paper SERIES, Cahoots Theatre; Lilies, Wonderful Town, Red Peppers/Shadowplay, After the Dance, and Sunday in the Park with George, Shaw Festival; Bombay Dreams, Broadway); Howard J. Davis as Kamal (Sweet Charity,Pygmalion, Shaw Festival; Passion Play, Outside the March); and Azeem Nathoo as Padma (Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Caesar and Cleopatra, Stratford Festival; Richard III, Metachroma Theatre/Montreal).

Stripped down to the most fundamental and striking elements, the Naked Season pares down theatre to a series of pure encounters between the audience, the actors, and the text. BOMBAY BLACK is presented as part of a seasonette that also includes: AGE OF AROUSAL, written by Linda Griffiths and directed by Jennifer Brewin, on stage now until November 8 in the Mainspace Theatre; and BANANA BOYS, written by Leon Aureus, adapted from the novel by Terry Woo, directed by Nina Lee Aquino, November 3 - 22 in the Studio Theatre.

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