Tarragon Theatre to Present CLOCKMAKER, FORESTS in 40th Anniversary Season

For 40 years, Tarragon Theatre has been producing plays by Canada's established and emerging playwrights. This anniversary season, they continue that tradition with an lineup of new Canadian plays alongside a contemporary American classic.

The 2010-2011 season will include:

The Clockmaker
by Stephen Massicotte
Directed by Bob White
Toronto Premiere

A humble clockmaker is besotted by a married woman who brings a shattered cuckoo clock into his shop. As he unravels the mystery of how the clock came to be destroyed, their relationship deepens and he vows to make her the most splendid clock the world has ever seen.

Stephen Massicotte is the author of Mary's Wedding, produced at theatres across Canada. His work was last seen at Tarragon in 2006/07 with The Oxford Roof-Climber's Rebellion, which was subsequently produced in New York.

The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
The Belfry Theatre Production
Directed by Michael Shamata Starring Seana McKenna
Toronto Premiere

In this dramatic adaptation of Joan Didion's award-winning memoir, one woman grapples with the sudden loss of her husband of forty years and their only child. Seana McKenna will reprise her critically acclaimed performance from Belfry Theatre's production.

Joan Didion is a celebrated writer of fiction and non-fiction including Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays and Up Close and Personal. This play is her adaptation of her memoir of the same name.

The Harps of God
by Kent Stetson
A co-production with the Segal Centre for Performing Arts (Montreal)
Directed by Richard Rose
Toronto Premiere

This play presents a raw retelling of the Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914, when 132 sealers were unwittingly abandoned on the ice for two long winter nights without supplies of any kind. A gripping ensemble piece, The Harps of God probes the limits of the human body and spirit, exploring the demands of leadership amidst catastrophic circumstances.

Kent Stetson received the 2001 Governor General's Literary Award for The Harps of God, as well as the 2001 Canadian Author's Association's inaugural Carol Bolt Award.

More Fine Girls
by Jennifer Brewin, Leah Cherniak, Ann-Marie Macdonald, Alisa Palmer and Martha Ross
A co-production with Theatre Columbus
Directed by Alisa Palmer Starring Leah Cherniak, Ann-Marie Macdonald and Martha Ross
World Premiere

Jayne, Jojo and Jelly get together ten years after the party that drove them apart. This time, the sisters go into the basement. They convene for a family crisis, and share an overwhelming need to be together again. It is an intimate and comic look at sisters and the surprising truths of middle age.

More Fine Girls is a new work written by Jennifer Brewin, Leah Cherniak, Ann-Marie Macdonald, Alisa Palmer and Martha Ross. They have come together to reprise their roles as they work to create a new play based on characters from their original hit The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls.

Forests
by Wajdi Mouawad, translated by Linda Gaboriau
Directed by Richard Rose
English-Language Premiere

When Aimee learns that she has an unusual brain tumour, she decides to risk her life to have her child, only to die when her daughter Loup is a teenager. Enraged and grief-stricken, Loup reluctantly begins a quest to discover the origin of her mother's mysterious illness. In a story that spans six generations and two continents, Wajdi Mouawad demonstrates that the bonds of family are not merely biological and cannot be contained: they are borne of love, sacrifice and deep commitment, and endure beyond the death of any single member.

Wajdi Mouawad is one of Quebec's most celebrated writers and directors and the Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre (French Theatre). Forests is the third play in a tetralogy (series of four plays) exploring origins, that includes Tideline and the celebrated Scorched.

Wide Awake Hearts
by Brendan Gall
Directed by Gina Wilkinson
World Premiere

A prodigious young film director casts his wife and his best friend as lovers in his new film. When their on-screen intimacy spills over into real life, he has to wonder: did he unwittingly clue in to a pre-existing affair and give it life on screen, or did he actually write it into existence?

Brendan Gall was a member of our 2006 Playwrights Unit where he developed 2007/2008's Alias Godot. His acclaimed performance in Tarragon's production of East of Berlin has been seen across Canada.

After Akhmatova
by Kate Cayley
Directed by Alan Dilworth
World Premiere

When Alan, a young American academic, travels to the U.S.S.R. to interview Lev Gumilyov, he believes he knows all there is to know about Lev's late mother: Anna Akhmatova. Once a writer of love poems, Anna became famous for Requiem, which is an ode to her imprisoned son and a dangerous condemnation of Stalin. As he searches for answers, Alan becomes entangled in Lev's relationship to his mother, to Requiem and to its impossible legacy.

Kate Cayley was a member of our 2008 Playwrights Unit where she developed After Akhmatova under the title Ashes. She is also Artistic Director of Stranger Theatre and the Producer of the Toronto's Cooking Fire Festival of Theatre.

In 1987, Tarragon purchased and renovated the building that has been its home since 1971. There are two playing spaces: Mainspace (205 seats), The Extra Space (100 seats). Both have flexible seating. The Tarragon Studio has three rehearsAl Halls, one of which can be converted to a 60 seat performance space. We also have a carpentry shop, a wardrobe shop, a prop shop, and four offices for playwrights-in-residence.

Tarragon is well known for its development, creation and encouragement of new work. Over 170 works have premiered at Tarragon. Playwrights who have premiered their work here include Morwyn Brebner, David French, Michael Healey, Joan MacLeod, Morris Panych, James Reaney, Jason Sherman and Judith Thompson among many others. Emerging playwrights who consider the Tarragon their creative home include Brendan Gall, Rosa Laborde and Hannah Moscovitch. The theatre has been a pioneer in presenting Quebeçois plays in translation, notably works by Michel Tremblay and Carole Fréchette.

For more information, visit www.tarragontheatre.com.

 

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