Noah Reid Returns To Coal Mine Theatre In November In A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

COAL MINE THEATRE will present the Toronto premiere of the Winner of the 2022 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play, Samuel D. Hunter's (The Whale) A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, on stage November 3rd to November 24th. (Media night: November 7th)

Returning to the Coal Mine after making an acclaimed Broadway debut in Tracy Lett's The Minutes and recently starring in the Amazon series Outer Range, beloved Schitt's Creek actor and musician Noah Reid stars alongside rising star Mazin Elsadig (Top Dog, Underdog and Pipeline) with COAL MINE co-founder Ted Dykstra directing.

"When I read this play, I immediately knew I wanted to direct it,” says COAL MINE Artistic Director Ted Dykstra. “Being a father going through divorce is something I have experienced first-hand in my life; it had a deeply visceral impact on me. Beautiful, heart tugging, and satisfying, for it to also include the subtleties and nuances of male friendship through the lens of a straight white man and a black gay man was also, for me, a thrill and icing on a very beautiful cake. And the ending was one of the most surprising and beautiful things I'd ever come across.”

Dykstra continues, "I feel in my bones that Noah and Mazin were made to do this play. Incredibly, Mazin will become a first-time father during the run of the show and Noah is a proud new dad himself! I met Noah when I taught him years ago at The National Theatre School and have always been a fan and Mazin I have admired from the audience side of the lights in other theatres, many times. I am a very lucky man to be at theirs and this play's service."

A thoughtful and meditative two-hander, Samuel D. Hunter's extraordinary play is both intimate and expansive as it explores themes of parenthood, financial insecurity and empathy. Unfolding in a cubicle where two seated people unexpectedly choose to bring one another into their fragile worlds, in the play mortgage broker Keith, and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a "specific kind of sadness." At this desk in the middle of America, loan talk opens up into a discussion about the chokehold of financial insecurity and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor, empathy and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality.

A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD premiered off-Broadway at Signature Theatre on April 12, 2022. Directed by David Cromer, the production featured Kyle Beltran and Will Brill and was met by a universal wave of critical accolades.

One of America's most decorated contemporary playwrights, Samuel D. Hunter is best known for A Bright New Boise, which won the 2011 Obie Award for playwriting, and The Whale, which won the 2013 Drama Desk Award, the 2013 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, and which he adapted for the 2023 Oscar award-winning film directed by Darren Aronofsky. His other full-length plays include Greater Clements (Drama Desk nomination for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Honoree), Lewiston/Clarkston (Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Few, A Great Wilderness, Rest, Pocatello, The Healing, and The Harvest, among others. He is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, a 2012 Whiting Writers Award and an honorary doctorate from the University of Idaho. His work has been produced Off Broadway in New York City by Lincoln Center Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Signature Theatre, Page 73 Productions, Clubbed Thumb, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. Elsewhere, his work has been produced by Theatre Royal Bath, Dallas Theatre Center, Seattle Rep, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, and Victory Gardens, among others. 

Joining Dykstra on the creative team are Set and Lighting Designer Nick Blais, Costume Designer Des'ree Gray, Sound Designer/Composer Aaron Jensen and Associate Sound Designer Shaun McPherson.

A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD is on stage at the COAL MINE THEATRE November 3rd – November 24th(Media night: November 7th) with performances Tuesday – Saturday at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2:00pm. Tickets are available now at coalminetheatre.com.

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