Soulpepper Unveils the 2011 Season With 17 Productions

Albert Schultz, Founding Artistic Director of Soulpepper Theatre Company, today announced the company's 2011 season. Seventeen plays from eight different countries and spanning four centuries will be presented. The season will include 12 original Soulpepper productions and a return of five of the most celebrated productions of Soulpepper's past: William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, John Gray and Eric Peterson's Billy Bishop Goes to War, Neil Simon's The Odd Couple and Miklós László's Parfumerie (adapted by Adam Pettle & Brenda Robins).

Original productions include 16th to 20th Century American and European classics by Henrik Ibsen, Eugene Ionesco, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt, William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams. The 2011 season will continue to showcase Canadian playwrights with productions of Judith Thompson's White Biting Dog and Guillermo Verdecchia's Fronteras Americanas, as well as Morris Panych's adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts.

The season will also feature a special Double Bill of works created by Soulpepper artists: (re)birth: e.e.cummings in song and Window on Toronto, both of which were developed with the support of the Garland/Schultz Artistic Development Fund.

New this season will be two special solo One Act presentations, both adaptations of short stories by international masters. Argentine master Jorge Luis Borges' The Aleph is adapted by Soulpepper founding member Diego Matamoros and associate artist Daniel Brooks, performed by Matamoros and designed by Michael Levine. The Kreutzer Sonata by Russian master Leo Tolstoy is adapted and performed by founding member Ted Dykstra.

"The 2011 season represents, more than any season to date, the scope and breadth of Soulpepper's artistic goals: to provide the city with the opportunity to see the great stories of our collective cultural inheritance; to establish a year-round repertory system; to prominently feature Canadian playwrights; and to develop original and vital new work based on classical sources. We are very excited about the year ahead!"

- Albert Schultz

Soulpepper's 2011 Season

OLEANNA

David Mamet (JANUARY 29 - MARCH 5)

An ordinary meeting between a professor and his student explodes into a debate on the abuses of power

that threatens to turn the tables completely. This is master wordsmith David Mamet (Glengarry Glen

Ross) at his aggressive best, in a play that brings to question the implications of thoughtless action and

political correctness gone sour.

THE FANTASTICKS

BOOK & LYRICS BY Tom Jones, MUSIC BY Harvey Schmidt (FEBRUARY 8 - MARCH 24)

"Try to Remember the Kind of September..." Forbidden love between the children of feuding neighbours and the complications that reality brings is lovingly rendered in this tender, hilarious musical. The world's longest running musical (42 years and 17,162 consecutive performances), The Fantasticks has delighted playgoers for generations.

A MIDSUMMER

NIGHT'S DREAM

William Shakespeare (FEBRUARY 17 - APRIL 15)

It's love in a forest, complicated by meddling fairies and paralleled with a hapless troupe of amateur

actors. One of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies.

THE TIME OF

YOUR LIFE

William Saroyan (MARCH 16 - APRIL 16)

William Saroyan's boisterous, fantastical, exquisitely crafted The Time of Your Life won the 1940 Pulitzer

Prize and two 2008 Dora Awards for Soulpepper's Joseph Ziegler and Stuart Hughes. A nostalgic and

open-eyed love letter to an America-that-might-have-been set in a late-1930s San Francisco honkytonk

saloon, Saroyan mixes an intoxicating cocktail of redemption and hope.

 

OUR TOWN

Thornton Wilder (APRIL 7 - MAY 13)

Soulpepper's beloved version of Thornton Wilder's masterpiece Our Town returns to remind us to make

the most of life's every blessing. Wilder's gentle, humorous and poetic theatrical meditation takes us to

the community of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, where the simplest acts can leave the greatest

impressions. 2006 Dora Award (Outstanding Production).

- "Soulpepper triumphs ... pure theatre you'll never forget" The Toronto Star

- "Soulpepper at its best" CBC Radio

DOUBLE BILL

(RE)BIRTH : E.E. Cummings IN SONG (APRIL 30 - MAY 28)

An innovative and highly theatrical perspective on one of the pre-eminent voices of 20th century poetry.

WINDOW ON TORONTO (APRIL 30 - MAY 28)

Master director László Marton and the ensemble show us our vibrant and often hilarious city from

the perspective of a hot dog vendor at Nathan Phillips Square.

FRONTERAS AMERICANAS

GUILLERMO VERDECCHIA (MAY 6 - MAY 27)

Winner of the Governor General's Award for best drama, Fronteras Americanas is written and

performed by renowned Argentinean Canadian artist Guillermo Verdecchia. A brilliant and

very funny examination of immigrant identity, Fronteras exposes the raw nerve of living with

one's heart in multiple places.

BILLY BISHOP GOES TO WAR
John Gray & Eric Peterson (JUNE 1 - AUGUST 4)

Eric Peterson and John Gray make a return flight to Soulpepper! Creators John Gray and Eric Peterson return with the beloved story of the celebrated and irreverent Canadian World War One flying ace.

- "Thirty years on, Billy Bishop still soars" The Globe and Mail

- "Billy Bishop Goes to War changed my life ... Ted Dykstra's production is perfection" NOW Magazine

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Tennessee Williams (JULY 1 - AUGUST 11)

The first great 'memory play,' Tennessee Williams' earliest success centres on the domestic anguish of the fading Wingfield family as they await the arrival of a 'Gentleman Caller' to redeem Laura, a woman as fragile as the glass animal figurines she cherishes.

EXIT THE KING

EUGÈNE IONESCO (AUGUST 6 - SEPTEMBER 1)

As the dilapidated kingdom of King Berenger the First crumbles around him, the aging

monarch is told that he has until the end of the play to live. Absurdist master Eugène Ionesco

at his hilarious and provocative best.

WHITE BITING DOG

Judith Thompson (AUGUST 13 - OCTOBER 1)

A distraught lawyer steps to the edge of Toronto's Bloor Street bridge but is stopped by the words of a small white dog, who instructs him that his mental pain will be eased if he can save his dying father. This searing portrayal of domestic disharmony is one of the great Toronto plays. Soulpepper is thrilled to perform the work of one of Canada's most celebrated writers.

THE PRICE

Arthur Miller (AUGUST 29 - SEPTEMBER 21)

Two estranged brothers meet in a condemned house to sell their father's possessions and discover that

thoughtless actions, turbulent memories, and longheld regret have more of a price than any family

heirlooms ever could. Arthur Miller's engrossing drama examines the repercussions of the decisions

we make and the price that every family pays.

THE ODD COUPLE

Neil Simon (SEPTEMBER 22 - OCTOBER 22)

Neil Simon's legendary exploration of the relationship between fastidious Felix and his sloppy roommate Oscar is one of the most iconic and enduring pieces of twentieth century American comedy. The pairing of Diego Matamoros' Felix and Albert Schultz's Oscar received rave reviews in 2008, and both will resume their hilarious, tender friendship.

- "Magic! Splendid! A bases-loaded homer of a hit" The Toronto Star

- "See this Company's two signature actors in joyous partnership" National Post

GHOSTS

Henrik Ibsen, ADAPTED BY Morris Panych (OCTOBER 10 - NOVEMBER 18)

With its frank discussion of relationships, morality, and family values, Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece

caused a sensation on its debut. In Morris Panych's vital new translation, the ghosts that haunt the

lives of a family's shattered glory are as haunting and provocative as ever.

PARFUMERIE

MIKLÓS LÁSZLÓ, ADAPTED BY Adam Pettle & BRENDA ROBINS (DECEMBER 8 - DECEMBER 24)

The smash hit of 2009 returns! Adam Pettle and Brenda Robins' winning adaptation about two clerks

in a Budapest perfume shop who feud by day and unknowingly exchange anonymous love letters by

night is one of the world's most beloved stories. 2010 Dora Award (Outstanding Production).

- "It's the kind of show that you dream about: funny, touching, perfectly performed, beautifully designed, smartly written and impeccably staged" Toronto Star

ONE-ACT GEMS

THE ALEPH

Diego Matamoros & Daniel Brooks (MAY 13 - JUNE 4)

The Aleph is the by-popular-demand return of the thought-provoking adaptation of a short story

by Argentinean master Jorge Luis Borges created by three of Canada's finest theatre artists, director

Daniel Brooks, designer Michael Levine, and actor Diego Matamoros.

THE KREUTZER

SONATA

Leo Tolstoy, ADAPTED BY Ted Dykstra (JULY 12 - AUGUST 11)

This acclaimed adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novella, adapted and performed by Ted Dykstra,

is an unflinching view of marriage, hatred, and sexual jealousy, underscored by Beethoven's

Kreutzer Sonata.

Current Soulpepper subscribers can renew their subscriptions beginning October 18, 2010. New subscriptions are available as of November 2, 2010, and single tickets are available as of November 23, 2010, by calling the Young Centre for the Performing Arts Box Office at 416.866.8666 or visiting soulpepper.ca.

2011 Soulpepper Lead Sponsors are: Sun Life Financial, Scotiabank Group and TELUS. Soulpepper gratefully acknowledges annual operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.

Soulpepper Theatre Company is an artist-founded, classical repertory theatre company with a three-tiered mandate: to present the world's greatest stories in vital Canadian interpretations; to train a new generation of theatre artists; and to inspire and enrich youth through mentorship and access programs.

 

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