Theatre Calgary set for 50th year
Bring out the candles, party hats and noisemakers.
Theatre Calgary is unveiling its 50th anniversary season and interim artistic director Shari Wattling couldn’t be prouder or more excited.
The golden anniversary season will kick off on Sept. 5 with the world premiere of Sharon Pollock’s new play Blow Wind High Water, the story of three generations of a family besieged by flood waters from the Bow River.
“We commissioned Sharon to write a play for this season that would highlight who we are as Calgarians today, and what she has given us is something insightful, dramatic, humorous and really theatrical,” says Wattling.
The play was workshopped through TC’s Fuse program of new play development with Downstage Theatre’s artistic director Simon Mallett directing. In 2007, Mallett directed the premiere of Pollock’s powerful drama Man Out of Joint, inspired by the Omar Khadr controversy.
“We will continue to workshop Blow Wind High Water later this year, so it will be ready for its premiere in September. This will be a thrilling start to our 50th season,” promises Wattling.
From Oct. 10 to Nov. 4, TC will present Sisters: The Belles Soeurs Musical — a play that has enjoyed enormous success at the National Arts Centre and Charlottetown Festival.
It is based on Michel Tremblay’s 1968 French Canadian play Les Belles-Soeurs with book, lyrics and direction by Rene Richard Cyr and music by Daniel Belanger. This English version was adapted by Brian Hill and Neil Bartram.
Set in 1960s Montreal, Les Belles-Soeurs tells the story of Germaine Lauzon, a workingclass housewife who wins one million trading stamps but doesn’t trust her jealous family, friends and neighbours when it comes to claiming her prize.
This musical is on a national tour and will make Calgary one of its stops.
The third play in TC’s main stage program is Calgary’s Old Trout Puppet Workshop version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night that received its premiere through the National Arts Centre under Jillian Keiley’s direction. It will run in TC’s home, the Max Bell Theatre, from Jan. 30 to Feb. 24.
“This production will help TC recognize and showcase the incredible artists who work here,” says Wattling.
Wattling says that TC is proud to present some of the most challenging new plays fresh from their success on Broadway and this year’s entry from that list is Stephan Karma’s Tony Awardwinning comedy-drama The Humans, which will run from March 6 to 31.
It won the Tony Award for best new play and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2015.
It is the story of a family that gathers for Thanksgiving in a tenement apartment in New York’s Chinatown where old tensions and grudges are unleashed.
Wattling calls The Humans “achingly real and piercingly funny.
“We had such great success with our productions of God of Carnage and Bad Jews that we were actively looking for another play of that calibre, and the buzz on The Humans is so astounding that we’re thrilled to be presenting it.”
TC’s main stage season will close with the Broadway musical The Secret Garden, based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 story of a young girl who brings life back to a neglected garden and to the household attached to it.
This musical version was a Tony Award winner in 1991 and has been popular with regional theatres ever since.
These five shows are just the tip of TC’s golden season.
From Nov. 23 to Dec. 24, TC will present its 31st edition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with Stephen Hair in his 24th incarnation as Ebenezer Scrooge.
This is Dennis Garnhum’s stage adaptation of the Dickens classic, and he will return to stage it once more with his assistant director Simon Mallett.
This summer, TC will return to Prince’s Island from June 20 to Aug. 27 with Shakespeare by the Bow and As You Like It directed by Lunchbox Theatre’s associate director Samantha MacDonald.
To commemorate TC’s 50th season, Calgary designer Deitra Kalyn has been commissioned to create a new stage and a new playing area for Shakespeare by the Bow.
This season, Theatre Calgary introduced a new program called TC Up Close, which kicked off with David Hare’s Skylight in the Arts Common’s Engineered Air Theatre. The response was so positive, this coming season TC will present Joe Slabe’s musical Touch Me: Songs for a (Dis) Connected Age.
Theatre Calgary will once again partner with One Yellow Rabbit to be part of the 2018 High Performance Rodeo by presenting Onegin, the runaway musical theatre hit from Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre.
Looking to connect with its earliest roots, TC will be hosting Western Canada High School as its High School in Residence.
"Theatre Calgary has it roots in Betty Mitchell’s classroom at Western Canada High School, so we thought it only fitting to initiate this new high school in residence program with Western Canada High. We’ll host a different high school each year.”
Season ticket packages for Theatre Calgary’s 50th anniversary season are on sale through theatrecalgary.com.