Crow's Theatre Announces 40th Anniversary Season

Artistic Director Chris Abraham and Executive Director Sherrie Johnson unveiled Crow's Theatre's 12-show 40th anniversary season, the largest and most ambitious season in the company's history. Following the record-breaking triumph of the 2022.23 season, Crow's 40th anniversary will be animated by world premieres and groundbreaking productions featuring the country's greatest artists, Canadian premieres of celebrated international hits, and tours of Crow's Theatre's most successful shows!

Executive Director Sherrie Johnson: "2022.23 was the year we fell back in love with theatre. The season was our love letter to Toronto. We gathered at full capacity, and we moved through each show with joy, despair, and laughter-and we did so together with the amazing Crow's audiences who came out in record numbers, our heroic staff and volunteers who worked tirelessly to make it happen, and the brave and courageous artists and partners who filled our stages with smart, spunky, daring, and assured productions.

"Feeling extremely galvanized and energized, we want our 40th anniversary to be exceptional. This season, we want to give a shout-out to all who made Crow's what it is today-40 years on. We look forward to welcoming you to Streetcar Crowsnest and to our fabulous restaurant, Gare de l'Est, as you take in a season filled with entertainment and enlightenment, reflection, and shared humanity. If you have any young people in your life, please encourage them to join our UNDER 30 ticket program. The next 40 years depends on the voices of the next generation of arts lovers as they imagine and build their future world."

Artistic Director Chris Abraham: "Next season will take our audience on a journey across the globe and into stories that create a snapshot of our common humanity.

"This season is a journey to the centre of empires-old, new, and just being born. It is a report from behind enemy lines, a diary of our secret joys, and an exposé of our public heartbreak. It is a ride in a bumpy jeep past a bombed-out cathedral; a ringside seat at a backyard battle for the soul of America; a mother's voice on a tape recorder; a meeting with a group of strangers who have mysteriously lost everyone they've ever loved and have no idea why. It is a heated and hilarious debate about self-driving cars and the future of cities as we know them. It is a group of boys on the reserve making themselves laugh just hard enough to forget what they don't want to remember. It is a passport to our own country. It is a wild party with music and old friends that reminds us of the unfathomable mystery of love and its capacity to wake us up to what's in front of us-because there is giant beautiful ball of fire hurtling towards us in the night sky that will probably destroy us all by morning.

"Across an astonishing series of dramas, true-life stories, fantasies, comedies, two operas, and a musical, our 40th anniversary season is a testimonial to our incredible resilience and capacity to change and adapt even in the most extreme situations."

The 2023.24 Crow's Theatre 40th anniversary season begins with multi-award-winning playwright Michael Healey's THE MASTER PLAN, adapted from The Globe and Mail journalist Josh O'Kane's best-selling book Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy, directed by Crow's Theatre Artistic Director Chris Abraham. This Crow's Theatre commission is a biting satire that lampoons the corporate drama, epic personalities, and iconic Canadian figures involved in the messy affair between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto as they attempt, and fail, to build a smart city in Toronto.

THE MASTER PLAN

Written by Michael Healey
Based on the book Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy by Josh O'Kane
Directed by Chris Abraham
September 5 to October 1, 2023
Opening Night: Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Guloien Theatre | World Premiere

The Howland Company returns to Crow's Theatre with HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING, written by Will Arbery and directed by Philip Akin. A daring look at a country at war with itself, it was hailed as "a work of singular distinction" by The Wall Street Journal. This haunting, multi-award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-finalist play grapples with right-wing religion, race, politics, and personal responsibility. The Howland Company and Crow's Theatre co-production is their fifth collaboration following the breakout success of Prodigal, written and directed by Paolo Santalucia.

HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING

Written by Will Arbery
Directed by Philip Akin
October 3 to 22, 2023
Opening Night: Friday, October 6, 2023
Studio Theatre
Canadian Premiere

Crow's Theatre invites audiences to walk down the street to VideoCabaret's Busy Street Theatre for (EVERYONE I LOVE HAS) A TERRIBLE FATE (BEFALL THEM), written and performed by Cliff Cardinal and directed by Karin Randoja, a VideoCabaret production in association with Crow's Theatre. Deep in the bowels of a church basement, Robert and his support group must come to terms with their mortality before the impending apocalypse. "One of the most important playwrights and performers in Canada" (Toronto Star), Cliff Cardinal offers his unique, haunting, and humorous portrayal of humankind on the brink of extinction.

(EVERYONE I LOVE HAS) A TERRIBLE FATE (BEFALL THEM)

Written and performed by Cliff Cardinal
Directed by Karin Randoja
October 10 to 29, 2023
Opening Night: Thursday, October 12, 2023
Deanne Taylor Theatre
World Premiere

A new production of the 2016 award-winning ROCKING HORSE WINNER, composed by Gareth Williams with libretto by Anna Chatterton and directed by Michael Hidetoshi Mori, rides into the Guloien Theatre for eight performances only, a Tapestry Opera production in association with Crow's Theatre. A modern adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's masterful short story of the same title, ROCKING HORSE WINNER is a powerful one-act opera that combines magical realism and lyrical minimalism for an intimate, psychological look at love, luck, greed, and obsession.

ROCKING HORSE WINNER

Composed by Gareth Williams | Libretto by Anna Chatterton
Directed by Michael Hidetoshi Mori | Conducted by Kamna Gupta
November 1 to 12, 2023
Opening Night: Thursday, November 2, 2023
Guloien Theatre

Crow's Theatre is honoured to produce the North American premiere of BAD ROADS by Kyiv-born playwright Natal'ya Vorozhbit, directed by Andrew Kushnir. Based on astonishing testimonies from the outset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014, BAD ROADS explores the heartbreaking effects of conflict on intimate relationships.

BAD ROADS

Written by Natal'ya Vorozhbit
Directed by Andrew Kushnir
November 7 to 26, 2023
Opening Night: Friday, November 10, 2023
Studio Theatre
North American Premiere

Crow's Theatre and The Musical Stage Company present the long-awaited Canadian premiere of the Broadway phenomenon NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 by Dave Malloy (Ghost Quartet). Originally scheduled for 2020 but delayed due to the pandemic, this Crow's Theatre and The Musical Stage Company co-production at the Guloien Theatre will be directed by Chris Abraham, choreographed by Ray Hogg with musical direction by Ryan deSouza. This 12-time Tony-nominated musical delivers a radically contemporary and moving take on Tolstoy's War and Peace with its audacious storytelling and ground-breaking score that mixes indie rock, pop, folk, electronic dance, and classic Broadway music.

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

Music and lyrics by Dave Malloy
Choreography by Ray Hogg
Music direction by Ryan deSouza
Directed by Chris Abraham
December 5, 2023, to January 7, 2024
Opening Night: Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Guloien Theatre
Canadian Premiere
Details and pricing about the Immersive Comet Experience will be announced in June. Seating will be extremely limited.

Performed in English with select performances in Farsi, EARWORM, a Nowadays Theatre production in association with Crow's Theatre, is written and directed by Mohammad Yaghoubi, co-founder of Nowadays Theatre. Yassmin, a long-time immigrant from Iran who fled persecution by the Islamic regime, must negotiate the reality that her son is in love with a conservative Muslim woman. When Yassmin's past catches up to her in present-day Toronto, their future happiness is threatened.

EARWORM

Written and directed by Mohammad Yaghoubi
February 6 to 25, 2024
Opening Night: Friday, February 9, 2024
Studio Theatre
World Premiere

The NOUS Théâtre production of L'AMOUR TELLE UNE CATHEDRALE ENSEVELIE is a powerful and disturbing oratorio to Haitian families lost at sea on the road to exile in Canada. In this deeply personal story, the Haitian, avant-garde, theatrical auteur Guy Régis Jr. meshes Creole songs, traditional music, and voodoo magic in a Franco-Haitian opera-theatre-concert hybrid. This Théâtre français de Toronto in association with Crow's Theatre presentation will be performed in French and Creole with English surtitles.

L'AMOUR TELLE UNE CATHEDRALE ENSEVELIE

Written and directed by Guy Régis Jr.
Music composed and performed by Amos Coulanges
February 22 to 25, 2024
Opening Night: Friday, February 23, 2024
Guloien Theatre
Toronto Premiere

Crow's Theatre presents The Goodman Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Vineyard Theatre production of the critically acclaimed and celebrated play DANA H., following a triumphant Broadway run and subsequent tour, led by director Les Waters with the original production's creative team. This riveting, cutting-edge drama follows the harrowing true story of Dana Higginbotham, a chaplain in a psychiatric ward, who was abducted by one of the patients and held captive for five months in a series of Florida motel rooms. Her son, acclaimed playwright Lucas Hnath (A Doll's House, Part 2), has created a powerful drama for the stage with his mother's own voice and courageous words.

DANA H.

Written by Lucas Hnath
Adapted from interviews with Dana Higginbotham conducted by Steve Cosson
Directed by Les Waters
Starring Jordan Baker as Dana H.
March 12 to April 7, 2024
Opening Night: Friday, March 15, 2024
Guloien Theatre
Canadian Premiere

Following up on her 2022 summer hit MASHUP PON DI ROAD, Bahia Watson thoughtfully blends razor-sharp humour with a piercing cultural critique in her intrepidly daring one-woman show shaniqua in abstraction. After starring in Crow's Theatre's Someone Else and The Seagull (co-produced with The Company Theatre) and, most recently, thrilling audiences with her unforgettable turn as Sonya in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, bahia returns in her Crow's Theatre playwriting debut. shaniqua in abstraction is a Crow's Theatre production in association with paul watson productions and Obsidian Theatre Company.

shaniqua in abstraction

written and performed by Bahia Watson
April 9 to 28, 2024
Opening Night: Friday, April 12, 2024
Studio Theatre
World Premiere

Cliff Cardinal returns to Crow's Theatre for a special one-week presentation of his critically acclaimed, award-winning solo show HUFF. Named a Canadian Cultural Icon in 2022 (The Globe and Mail), Cliff Cardinal is known for his dark humour, compassionate poeticism, and lauded solo shows Stitch, Huff, Cliff Cardinal's CBC Special, and As You Like It, A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal, which continues to tour. Crow's Theatre presents the Cunning Concepts & Creations production of HUFF.

HUFF

Written and performed by Cliff Cardinal
Directed by Karin Randoja
April 23 to 28, 2024
Opening Night: Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Guloien Theatre

The season concludes with a farce: the Toronto premiere of THE WRONG BASHIR written by Zahida Rahemtulla and directed by Paolo Santalucia. Bashir Ladha, a young philosophy major leaning towards nihilism, moves back home with his parents and is unwittingly chosen to serve in a prestigious religious position by leaders from the Ismaili community. When two council representatives arrive to meet their esteemed nominee, a hilarious mistaken-identity romp ensues that sees the intergenerational family questioning their traditional way of life.

THE WRONG BASHIR

Written by Zahida Rahemtulla
Directed by Paolo Santalucia
Associate Director Zahida Rahemtulla
May 21 to June 16, 2024
Opening Night: Friday, May 24, 2024
Guloien Theatre

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