Hit San Francisco production, Stories by Alice Munro comes to Toronto for a short show run from Thursday, April 16 to Sunday, April 19 at The Isabel Bader Theatre located in downtown Toronto.
Based on stories by Nobel Prize Winner Alice Munro, the world premiere of Stories by Alice Munro: "The Office" and "Dolly" opened a six-week run in San Francisco to critical acclaim and sold out houses on March 7, 2015. Coming to Toronto in mid-April for it's only Canadian stop, "Stories by Alice Munro" will show just five performances over four days before heading off for a month long tour in France. Munro has never before given the rights to her short stories for a full-scale professional theatrical production of this nature in Canada before this.
"Alice Munro's short stories are revelatory in nature," remark Artistic Directors Susan Harloe and JoAnne Winter. "She writes about the quotidian in our lives, enhanced by her subtle wit, and her deep perception of hidden desires."
Alice Munro's work has been described as having revolutionized the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Having won a series of awards, most recently the Nobel Prize for Literature, much of Munro's work exemplifies the literary genre known as Southern Ontario Gothic. It is a mark of her style for characters to experience a revelation that sheds light on, and gives meaning to, an event. Munro's prose reveals the ambiguities of life: her style places the fantastic next to the ordinary, with each undercutting the other in ways that simply and effortlessly evoke life.
"Winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013, Alice Munro was deemed "the master of the contemporary short story," add Harloe and Winter. "For Word for Word, and our mission of performance of short stories, this is an exciting match".
The production features two short stories by Alice Munro. Ranging from Munro's first short story collection (Dance of the Happy Shades) to her most recent (Dear Life), these two stories showcase the irony, humor, and surprise found in Munro's heroines. Munro's prose reveals the ambiguities of life: her style places the fantastic next to the ordinary, with each undercutting the other in ways that simply and effortlessly evoke life.
In "The Office", a young housewife is convinced that an office of one's own is what she needs to be a real writer--but when she finds the perfect place, her landlord presents an unexpected and surprising obstacle; in "Dolly", our protagonist is confident that she and her husband have the enduring love of late life-until Franklin's old flame pops up.
"Any celebration of Alice Munro merits attention, but when that celebration comes from Word for Word, the ever-astonishing company that transforms short fiction into brilliant theater with complete fidelity to the original text, attention must not only be paid but also reveled in and savored," comments Chad Jones, San Francisco Chronicle and Theatre Dogs.
Word for Word has a unique and distinctive style. Known for not adapting short stories, Word for Word brings them to life verbatim, with every word in tact, including the "he saids" and "she saids" and all the description - which often has a hilarious effect when said from the voice of the person being described.
Authors from around the world hold them in high regard and for that reason are so enthusiastic and confident about giving them the rights to their work. It is a very unusual and compelling intersection of literature and theatre.
Stories by Alice Munro: "The Office" and "Dolly" is under the direction of Joel Mullennix, the cast features Sheila Balter,* Jeri Lynn Cohen,*
Paul Finocchiaro,
Howard Swain,* and Susan Harloe.* (*AEA) The creative team for Stories by Alice Munro: "The Office" and "Dolly" has scenic design by Jackie Scott with lighting design by Jim Cave.
Joel Mullennix (Director) directed the highly successful Word for Word productions of In Friendship, Olive Kitteridge, More Stories by Tobias Wolff, Which is More Than I Can Say About Some People, and "The Last Stand" from You Know When the Men Are Gone; Family Alchemy for Traveling Jewish Theater; and Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass at the Marsh Theater in Berkeley. He has also directed works by Chekhov, Shakespeare, Miller,
Stephen Adly Guirgis, and others. Joel has performed in many Word for Word productions and other Bay Area theater as well as in New York and Europe.
"
Joel Mullennix has done a stunning job bringing both the comic and tragicomic ironies of Munro's words to life, and the cast for both stories is superb," writes David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle.
Douglas Gibson, the well-known Alice Munro biographer and publisher is co-curating the post show discussion panels with local presenter of the production, Sara Schwartz Geller Productions. Following his retirement, Gibson published a memoir, Stories About Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro,
Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau, and Others. Munro wrote the book's introduction. In recent years, he has also been known for frequent public appearances and statements on behalf of Munro, whose declining health has prevented her from making many public engagements.
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The production will announce the post show discussion guests as details become available.
Mr. Gibson will be on the panel following each performance.
The Toronto based, International Festival of Authors is the official community partner for this production.
The Toronto production of the legendary Word for Word's production of Stories byAlice Munro: "The Office" and "Dolly" April 16-19, 2015 at The Isabel Bader Theatre. Tickets range from $20.00 to $54.00 per person. Tickets can be purchased online, on the phone or in person via U of T tix.
For more information, please visit
www.storiesbyalicemunro.com.
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