Talk Is Free Theatre has announced principal casting and creative teams for the first three productions of the current season. Some of Canada's most renowned artists are scheduled to appear, with additional casting announcements expected to follow at a later date.
Stratford Festival stars Lucy Peacock, Nigel Bennett and Brian Tree will reunite in The Sneeze by Anton Chekhov. The collage evening will include material Chekhov wrote for the stage, as well as Chekhov stories adapted by Michael Frayn. The Sneeze is directed by Marti Maraden (Stratford Festival, National Arts Centre), with design by Nick Blais (Terminus).David Ferry and Diana Leblanc will star in The Last of Romeo and Juliet, a conceptual adaptation by Mitchell Cushman, based on the words by William Shakespeare. The production will also feature Clare Coulter, John Gilbert, Alex Poch-Goldin, Luke Humphrey, Jennifer Phipps and Sandi Ross. The Last of Romeo and Juliet will be set in a Canadian retirement home. All teenage characters will be played by senior artists, while the adult figures will be portrayed by actors of biological age to be their children. Through this relocating of Shakespeare's text, the production will explore the present-day dilemma in which the Baby Boomer generation find themselves responsible to parent their parents, as well as the fated powerlessness and the subject of "old love", which can feel more impossible and just as star-crossed as that experienced by Romeo and Juliet. Cushman (whose TIFT's production of Possible Worlds recently played to critical and box office success at Munich's BeMe Theatre) will also direct, with design by Nick Blais.Videos