Nightwood Theatre Sets 2016-17 Season of World Premieres & More

Artistic Director Kelly Thornton and Managing Director Beth Brown have announced Nightwood Theatre's 2016-2017 season. In our 37th season we have assembled a full playbill representing some of the most dynamic female voices working in theatre today. Nightwood is proud to support and partner with the ever-burgeoning community of independent artists that are developing high caliber contemporary theatre.

The season is anchored with our production of Unholy by Diane Flacks. In development at Nightwood since 2013, and fresh from its wildly successful workshop production last fall, Flacks' smart, witty exploration of misogyny and religion is sure to draw attention.

Our double bill of Mouthpiece and Quiver highlights pieces that are artistically compatible and will draw an audience looking for more innovative, contemporary work.

Rounding out the season is Volcano's cutting-edge, contemporary Century Song, which tracks 100 years in women's lives. Century Song's innovation pushes the boundaries of what theatre can be with its hybrid elements of dance, opera, film, visual arts and theatre.

Committed to launching and supporting the powerful voice of female playwrights, Nightwood will also present Groundswell Unplugged: A Festival of Contemporary Women's Theatre.

Says Nightwood Theatre's Artistic Director Kelly Thornton, "As we champion the female creator this season, we focus our lens even tighter to the creator/performer, where every author steps off the page and onto the stage."

NIGHTWOOD THEATRE'S 2016-17 SEASON

MOUTHPIECE
Created and Performed by Norah Sadava & Amy Nostbakken
October 21-November 6, 2016, Buddies in Bad Times Mainspace
Presented in rep with Quiver

A harrowing, humorous and heart-wrenching journey into the female psyche. In the wake of her mother's death, Mouthpiece follows one woman, for one day, as she tries to find her voice. Interweaving a cappella harmonies, dissonance, text and physicality, two performers express the inner conflict that exists within a modern woman's head: the push and the pull, the past and the present, the progress and the regression.

After its sold-out run in Toronto in 2015, and garnering six Dora Award nominations, and two wins, Nightwood is proud to bring this powerful show back to the stage.

Directed and Composed by Amy Nostbakken

A Nightwood Theatre presentation of a Quote Unquote Collective production
QUIVER
Written and Performed by Anna Chatterton
October 21-November 6, 2016, Buddies in Bad Times Mainspace
Presented in rep with Mouthpiece

A single mother and a rebellious teenage daughter collide when a love interest comes between them, leaving 14 year old Maddie caught in the crossfire. Armed with little more than a microphone, laptop and vocal processor, writer-performer Anna Chatterton crafts and controls a sonic landscape in a masterful performance. A dark, delicious comedy about a passionate and imperfect family.

Directed by Andrea Donaldson and Produced by Nightwood Theatre

UNHOLY
Written by Diane Flacks
January 15-February 5, 2017, Buddies in Bad Times Mainspace

Set in a fictional live public debate that asks, "should women abandon religion?" Unholy is about the complex intersection of religion and misogyny, and the conflict between ideology and desire. As four female panelists face off in a provocative battle of wits, passion and attraction outside the debate fuels fire at the podium, leaving the women, their moderator and the entire audience to a spiral into freefall.

Directed by Kelly Thornton and Produced by Nightwood Theatre

Featuring Patricia Hamilton, Diane Flacks, Bahareh Yaraghi, Niki Landau, and Blair Williams

CENTURY SONG
Starring and Created by Neema Bickersteth, with co-creators Kate Alton and Ross Manson
April 12-29, 2017, Crow's Theatre Performance Facility

Century Song is a live performance hybrid. Inspired in part by Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mother's Gardens and Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Bickersteth seamlessly melds song and movement to inhabit a century of women whose identities are contained within her own. This exquisitely unique show features music by some of the past 100 years' most adventurous composers, as well as projections by Germany's fettFilm - extraordinary visuals that bring to life major art movements of the 20th century. Both whimsical and riveting, Century Song is a wordless chronicle of the age, built from art.

Performed by Neema Bickersteth, with Gregory Oh (piano) and Debashis Sinha (computer and percussion). Featuring compositions by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, Georges Aperghis and Reza Jacobs

Directed by Ross Manson Choreographed by Kate Alton

Nightwood Theatre presents a Volcano Theatre/Moveable Beast Collective production

GROUNDSWELL UNPLUGGED: WRITE FROM THE HIP READING SERIES
Readings from the 2015/16 Emerging Playwrights program, Facilitated by Andrea Donaldson
September 19 - 24, 2016, Ernest Balmer Studio, The Distillery District

Be the first to hear new work from some of the most exciting emerging female playwrights in the city. The 2016-17 Write from the Hip writers are Aviva Armour-Ostroff, Jijo Quayson, Marcia Walker, Meara Tubman-Broeren and Tabitha Keast. Write from the Hip is a year-long script development program designed to support new writers toward the completion of a full-length play. Come hear what these talented women have created.

Groundswell Unplugged will also include an industry series of panels, salons and networking events alongside a workshop and public reading of OAC Playwright in Residence Anna Chatterton's new play Heroine at The Nightwood Studio, Distillery District.

TICKETS AND SEASON PASSES

2016-2017 Season Passes are $80 ($60 for patrons under 30) go on sale April 19, 2016. Call Nightwood Theatre at 416-944-1740 ext. 4, or purchase online at www.nightwoodtheatre.net.

Single Tickets range from $25 to $45 and will go on sale in Fall 2016.

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