Calgarians get national honour
The National Arts Centre might be based in Ottawa, but the facility’s 2015- 16 lineup, announced this week by artistic director Jillian Keiley, features an abundance of artists and shows with Calgary connections: Janelle Cooper, who recently starred in Ellipsis Tree Collective’s production of The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, by Governor- General Award winning playwright Djanet Sears, will reprise the role in a show that’s a co- production with Montreal’s Centaur Theatre. ( Cooper is part of the company’s 2015 English Ensemble, and will perform in other shows as well.) The Old Trout Puppet Workshop are reinventing Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night as a puppet show, ( in a production that I hear is also Stratford- bound at some point). Nikki Loach and Quest Theatre’s production of The Snow Angel will be part of the theatre’s family series, which will also feature former Calgarian ( and Enbridge playRites Festival regular) Mieko Ouchi’s I Am for You. And speaking of Alberta Theatre Projects, the season also features Colleen Murphy’s The December Man, which had its world premiere at PlayRites back in 2007. Another show that had its world premiere in Calgary, as part of the 2014 High Performance Rodeo, is Rick Miller’s BOOM. Also, for lovers of Anne of Green Gables ( Theatre Calgary, 2013), the NAC will present a sequel — Anne and Gilbert — as their holiday production. The 2015- 16 season also includes a musical adaptation of Michel Tremblay’s La Belle Soeurs, Australia’s Jack Charles V the Crown and Governor- General Award winner Jordan Tannahill’s Concord Floral. ( Calgary audiences will get a taste of Tannahill in Downstage’s upcoming production of rihannaboi95, which opens April 23.