Studio 180 Theatre Announces 20th Anniversary Season

Studio 180 Theatre is returning to in-person performances in the 2022-23 season, marking their 20th anniversary with their first 3-play season in three different venues, working with five different partners.

"Our 20th anniversary season is defined by three playwrights whose overriding focus is on identity: how we see ourselves at the same time as we come to understand how we are seen by others. And as I look back at Studio 180's history, I'm struck by the continuity of this theme in all the work we've produced. Cultural, political, racial, religious and sexual identities have informed most of our past productions, and I anticipate that the exploration will continue as we embark on the next twenty years." - Joel Greenberg, Artistic Director.

Indecent, Paula Vogel's multi award-winning play about theatre, art and the people who dedicate their lives to insisting on its continuity, opens the anniversary season at the same time as it launches the Off-Mirvish season at the CAA Theatre (formerly the Panasonic). This project, one of the many casualties of the pandemic, was shut down two weeks before rehearsals were to have begun . Now, under Joel Greenberg's direction, the play finally comes to Toronto.

My Sister's Rage, written and directed by Dora Award-nominated Yolanda Bonnell, runs in the Tarragon Theatre season, in association with T.O. Live and Studio 180 Theatre. Bonnell's play premieres after two years in the Studio 180 IN DEVELOPMENT new works program.

The Chinese Lady closes the season, marking Studio 180 Theatre's first partnership with fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company and Crow's Theatre. Directed by award-winning interdisciplinary artist Marjorie Chan, the play, by Lloyd Suh, explores the nature of identity, both how we are seen by others and how we see ourselves.

Two long-standing supporters also return to make the season possible - Founding Patron, the Zukerman Family Foundation, and the 2022/23 Season Sponsor, BMO Financial Group.

STUDIO 180 THEATRE'S 2022/2023 SEASON:

INDECENT

written by Paula Vogel directed by JOEL GREENBERG

October 14 - November 6 2022

Studio 180 Theatre and Mirvish Productions

In 1923, after celebrated European productions, the Broadway debut of Sholem Asch's drama God of Vengeance set the stage for an explosive moment in theatrical history. The evocative work of Jewish culture was praised and criticized for taboo themes of censorship, immigration, and anti-Semitism. Inspired by these true events and the controversy, Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel tells the behind-the-scenes story of the courageous artists who risked their careers and lives to perform a work deemed "indecent."

MY SISTER'S RAGE

written and directed by YOLANDA BONNELL

October 11 - November 6, 2022

Tarragon Theatre in association with Studio 180 Theatre and T.O. Live

When their Matriarch ends up in a coma, a ma'iingan-wolf clan family gathers together to work through their collective grief and begin to heal from an incident in the past. While the Aunties camp out in the hospital room, the younger cousins spend their time at the Grandmother's house by the backyard firepit, all while being circled by a cackling crow jokester. As the veil between the ancestral plane and the earthly realm gets thinner, tensions and emotions are high and vulnerabilities are exposed, revealing the true strength and resilience of the ma'iingan kwe.

THE CHINESE LADY

written by Lloyd Suh directed by MARJORIE CHAN

May 2 to 23, 2023

Studio 180 Theatre and fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company in association with Crow's Theatre

Afong Moy is 14 years old when she's brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Purportedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as "The Chinese Lady." As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Alternatingly dark, poetic, and whimsical, the play is a searing portrait of Western culture seen through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.

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