Theatre Erindate stages WAITING FOR THE PARADE

Canadian War Classic at Theatre Erindale

The third show of Theatre Erindale's 2006-2007 "Demon of Men" season is the famous contemporary classic about Canadian women surviving World War II. John Murrell's Waiting for the Parade will preview January 18, open January 19, and run to January 27 at the Erindale Studio Theatre. The drama with music in 24 scenes premiered in Calgary in 1977 and has since then been performed on television, across the country, in New York, London, and around the world.

Calgary in the '40s. Five disparate women band together to support the war effort for a conflict they had no part in causing. As they entertain the troops, they cope with shortages, politics, each other, and their menfolk – both those who went overseas and those who stayed behind. And in the process, they come face to face with themselves. The play developed out of interviews with actual Calgary women who had managed to live through the war. Incorporating the lifestyles, prejudices, music and dances of the '40s, it opens a multi-faceted window onto Canadian society at the time. "You follow these women … with a rapt empathy seldom elicited in world theater." – New York Magazine "A small masterpiece." – Ottawa Citizen

John Murrell is one of Canada's best known international playwrights. His dramas focus on real people and cultural icons: Sarah Berhardt, Eleonora Duse, Isadora Duncan, Walt Whitman, Georgia O'Keefe, Martin Frobisher, and even Friedrich Nietzsche. He has also written operas, and translated works by anyone from Sophocles to Chekhov. Murrell has headed the Banff Playwright's Colony and the Theatre Section of the Canada Council, been Associate Director of the Stratford Festival and Artistic Director of the Banff Centre for the Arts, and is a multiple Chalmers Award winner and an Officer of the Order of Canada. His plays have been translated into fifteen languages and produced in more than thirty countries around the world.

Special guest director Lezlie Wade is a graduate of the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York City and a member of the Lincoln Centre Director's Lab. She has staged productions for the Sudbury Theatre Centre, Showboat Festival, Theatre Orangeville, and Victoria Playhouse among others, served as Artistic Director of Theatre in Port and the Georgian Theatre Festival, and been chosen for the 2007 Director's Project this summer at the Shaw Festival. She has acted across the country, and her plays have been performed by The Globe Theatre, Workshop West, Carousel Theatre in Vancouver, and the Smile Company.

Music Director Christopher Dawes is a veteran composer and choir director and the founding Artistic Director of Organ Alternatives. His stunningly varied original music for Theatre Erindale has been heard in The Libation Bearers, Unity (1918), Women Beware Women, Love's Labour's Lost, and Thirteen Hands.

Theatre Erindale mainstage productions feature the performances of senior Acting students in the joint Sheridan-UTM Theatre and Drama Studies Program with the design and direction of seasoned professionals. They take place in the intimate state-of-the-art Erindale Studio Theatre on the campus of the University of Toronto at Mississauga. Some performances sell out, so early booking is recommended. For further information, or to order tickets, call the Erindale Studio Theatre Box Office at 905-569-4369 or visit www.theatreerindale.com.

Waiting for the Parade by John Murrell
directed by Lezlie Wade, with musical direction by Christopher Dawes

Erindale Studio Theatre, 3359 Mississauga Road North between Dundas and Burnhamthorpe

Previews January 18, Opens January 19, runs to January 27

Tuesday – Thursday 7:30PM, Friday – Saturday 8:00PM, matinée January 27 2:00PM

$14.00 Adults, $9.00 Students/Seniors (Parking in Lots 1 or 2: $5.00)

Box Office: 905-569-4739 or www.theatreerindale.com

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