George F. Walker's FIERCE Opens This Week

As announced, Criminal Girlfriends, a new Toronto-based theatre collective, presents a new play by the award-winning George F. Walker, one of Canada's most frequently produced and internationally acclaimed playwrights. Fierce is an intense and intensely funny razor-sharp work centred on two women, both troubled by their pasts: a psychiatrist and her drug-addicted patient (or at least, that's how it starts out). The world premiere of Fierce OPENS THIS WEEK and runs February 15-March 3 (with Media Night on Saturday, February 17) at Red Sandcastle Theatre in Toronto's Leslieville neighbourhood.

The performance schedule has been slightly revised: Performances still run Monday-Saturday @ 8pm but a Sunday matinee has been added on February 25 @ 3pm; and there is no show Monday February 26.

Tickets for Fierce are on sale now online at http://www.criminalgirlfriends.com/. Book by today for 25% discount.

Fierce: Two women. A retired professional woman, arrested while wandering in traffic is found to be under the influence of a potent "drug cocktail." She is ordered by the court to undergo treatment, and placed in a clinic run by a psychiatrist who has her own difficult history. A volatile 75-minute encounter, fuelled by painful revelations - and their mutual distaste of politeness - provocatively ensues.

Filled with Walker's trademark ferocious and finely-honed wit, Fierce stars Vancouver / Toronto / Montreal actor and performance artist Marisa Crockett as the psychiatrist Maggie and Vancouver's Emmelia Gordon (two-time Jessie Richardson award winner making her Toronto debut) as her patient, Jayne. These two starry-eyed drifters met while taking an acting workshop with the playwright. Kindred spirits, the two women created Criminal Girlfriends to produce this edgy comedy, born out of a common desire to make intense, punchy theatre happen in intimate spaces.

They recruited long-time Walker collaborator Wes Berger to direct. This will be the fourth world premiere production of a George F. Walker play that Berger has directed; he most recently helmed the premiere of Walker's smash hit The Chance for Leroy St. Theatre last fall and previously premiered Walker's Parents Night and The Bigger Issue for CrazyLady Productions. Of The Chance, Lynn Slotkin, writing for Intermission Magazine, said: "It's clear director Wes Berger has a keen sense of the desperate worlds Walker creates" while Now Magazine noted "Berger delivers a fast-paced, consistently hilarious take." Laura Lakatosh is the stage manager; Martha Moldaver is the assistant director. Kate Walker is the producer.

George F. Walker wrote his first play, The Prince of Naples, in 1972. He went on to become one of Canada's most prolific, provocative and popular playwrights and is still one of Canada's most widely produced dramatists at home and internationally. Walker has written over 40 plays and created screenplays for several award-winning Canadian TV series. Part Kafka, part Lewis Carroll, Walker's distinctive, gritty, fast-paced tragicomedies satirize the selfishness, greed, and aggression of contemporary urban culture. Among his best-known works are Zastrozzi, the Master of Discipline (1977); Filthy Rich (1979); Criminals in Love (1984); Nothing Sacred (1988); Escape from Happiness (1991); Suburban Motel (1997, a series of six plays set in the same motel room); Heaven (2000) and Dead Metaphor (2013). Television shows include This is Wonderland, The Line and Living in Your Car. His plays have been translated into French, German, Hebrew, Turkish, Polish, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese Hungarian, Danish, Italian and Czech. Mr. Walker has received two Governor General's Literary Awards for Drama (for Criminals in Love and Nothing Sacred); the Governor General's Lifetime Achievement Award (2009); the Toronto Arts Council Lifetime Achievement award; five Dora Mavor Moore Awards; nine Chalmers Canadian Play Awards and the Order of Canada.

Criminal Girlfriends proudly presents the world premiere of Fierce by George F. Walker Directed by Wes Berger Starring Marisa Crockett and Emmelia Gordon
Previews February 15 & 16, Opens Saturday, February 17 and runs to March 3, 2018 Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen St. East, Toronto

Monday-Saturday @ 8pm (except no show on Monday February 26); Sunday matinee on February 25 @ 3pm
Ticket Prices: February 15 & 16 Previews & February 25 Matinee - Pay-what-you-can Regular Run: February 17-March 3 - $25 (Arts Workers/Students/ Seniors $20 and Youth 25 & under $15)

Use code EARLYBIRD, for 25% off regular tickets if booked by February 12. For info and to book online, visit http://www.criminalgirlfriends.com/ or fiercetoronto.brownpapertickets.com

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