Photo Flash: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS Runs At The Shaw Festival Theatre Until 10/24

For its 2009 season, The Shaw takes on a monumental and historic project with full productions of each play in Noel Coward’s famous Tonight at 8:30 collection. The Shaw’s 2009 productions represent the first time all ten short plays have been performed in repertory by a professional company since they were first produced by London’s Phoenix Theatre in 1935-36. The plays will be performed in sets of three, one on each of the Festival’s Niagara-on-the-Lake stages, with the tenth, the rarely produced Star Chamber, being the lunchtime production in the Royal George. And to celebrate this idea for the event that it is, on two separate occasions, we will present all ten in one day – an event we are appropriately naming “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”.

The complete 2009 season includes six additional full productions. The Shaw’s celebration of Coward’s witty and subversive world sits perfectly beside the work of house wit and subversive, Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw’s exhilarating The Devil’s Disciple, last produced at The Shaw in 1996, is directed in 2009 by renowned Polish director Tadeusz Bradecki, and presented in the Festival Theatre. In the Royal George Theatre, audiences can enjoy Shaw’s hilarious satire of philosophy, playwriting and acting, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days.

Garson Kanin’s classic comedy Born Yesterday, directed by Neil Munro, will share the Festival Theatre stage. An enduring story of a corrupt tycoon and his not-so-dumb blonde girlfriend, the play was a huge hit on Broadway in 1946 with Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn.

The Court House Theatre will house Eugene O’Neill’s romantic drama A Moon for the Misbegotten, directed by Joseph Ziegler. Continuing to program Canadian classics, Michel Tremblay’s phenomenal Albertine in Five Times, in a new translation by Linda Gaboriau and directed by Micheline Chevrier, will complete the Court House season.

Building on the success of the 2008 season’s A Little Night Music and Follies: In Concert, The Shaw continues to explore the work of Stephen Sondheim with a production of Sunday in the Park with George, directed by Alisa Palmer. The piece is a perfect fit with the intimate jewel-box setting of the Royal George Theatre.

The Shaw Festival a non-profit charitable organization founded in 1962. The Shaw Festival presents a season of plays in repertory featuring leading Canadian actors and directors. The company works in four theatres. The largest is the 856 seat Festival Theatre. They produce 10 to 12 plays each season, with approximately 800 performances in four theatres, to audiences totaling about 300,000 people.

Regular ticket prices range from $30 to $110 (Canadian) including GST. For Special Matinees, student tickets are $25 and senior tickets are $40. Lunchtime ticket prices are $30. Sunday night performances are available all season from $45 to $60 and, for patrons aged 19-29, $30 tickets are available for most performances. Preview prices are $55 to $70. Family tickets are available in each theatre: for each regularly-priced ticket purchased, one or two youth tickets (18 years or under) may be purchased for just $30. New in 2009 are specially designated $30 seats for most Festival Theatre performances. For ticket information visit: www.shawfest.com/calendar or call 1-800-511-7429.

Photos by David Cooper.

Photos by Emily Cooper.

Deborah Hay

Thom Marriott and Corrine Koslo

Deborah Hay, Patrick Galligan, and Thom Marriot

Goldie Semple and Corrine Koslo

Corrine Koslo and Thom Marriott

eborah Hay, Goldie Semple, and Patrick Galligan

Deborah Hay and Patrick Galligan

Michael Ball, Deborah Hay, and Thom Marriot

Deborah Hay and Patrick Galligan

Deborah Hay

Goldie Semple, Deborah Hay, Patrick Galligan, and Thom Marriot

Gray Powell and Krista Colosimo

Deborah Hay and Patrick Galligan

Goldie Semple and Thom Marriot

Corrine Koslo

Patrick Galligan

Deborah Hay and Patrick Galligan

Wade Bogart-O’Brien, Prince Amponsah, Corrine Koslo, and Krista Colosimo

Gray Powell, Corrine Koslo, and Krista Colosimo

Gray Powell, Krista Colosimo, and Patrick Galligan

Patrick Galligan, Deborah Hay, Corrine Koslo, and Thom Marriott

Corrine Koslo

Thom Marriot and Deborah Hay

Corrine Koslo, Deborah Hay, and Gray Powell

Patrick Galligan and Deborah Hay