Yell Rebel Brings Eva Barrie's Arresting Play AGENCY to The Theatre Centre

After spending her life haunted by her father's mysterious disappearance at the hands of the Stasi, Hannah finally has the opportunity to set the record straight: she finds the man who spied on him. Demanding answers and getting far more than she bargained for, Hannah takes a trip into the past. Set in present-day Berlin and 1980s Divided Berlin, Agency investigates the relationship between the communist vs. post-Wall generation while exploring intimacy in lonely human-beings.

In this provocative new piece, Eva Barrie (Shakespeare in the Ruff's My Co-Mates & Brothers in Exile creator/director) explores the literal and metaphorical walls we build around ourselves. "It's important to me to question what we call 'The Canadian Play'" Barrie says. "We're a nation of immigrants, and not every Canadian story begins on Canadian soil. Every Canadian has a story: this one's mine".

Agency, dramaturged by Thomas Morgan Jones (Artistic Director of Theatre New Brunswick), was featured alongside works by Sharon Pollock and Guillermo Verdecchia in DaPoPo Theatre's 2015 National Live-In Series in Halifax. An exciting addition to Canada's playwriting scene, Barrie's writing has been supported by Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Gargantua, Shakespeare in the Ruff, DaPoPo Theatre, the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Director Megan Watson (The Grand Theatre Associate Artistic Director, Extremophiles at SummerWorks) leads a team of ferocious talent. Earl Pastko (Crow's Theatre, Factory Theatre, The Company Theatre) plays the ex-Stasi informant and failing travel agency employee, Ben Sanders (seven seasons at the Shaw Festival, NOW Magazine's Top 10 Artists of the Year, 2015) returns to Toronto as the flawed and radical father, while Barrie herself rounds out the team (Ben Affleck in Matt & Ben, Brutus in SOTMC's Julius Caesar, & Lady Mortimer in Shakespeare im Park Berlin's König Heinrich der Vierte,).

Designers Karyn McCallum (Tarragon Theatre, Pauline McGibbon Prize Winner), Mikael Kangas (Shaw Festival, Lower Ossington Theatre) and Lyon Smith (Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille) bring a sharp, innovative design to the show, complimenting a major theme in the writing: "Vergangenheitsbewältigung," a German concept that best translates to the "struggle to come to terms with the past". The past invades the present, and The Theatre Centre's Incubator Space is about to be invaded...

Agency would not be possible without generous funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This is a Canadian Actors' Equity Association production under the Artist's Collective Policy.

For more information, visit: http://www.yellrebeltheatre.com/

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