WHAT’S UP NEXT SEASON AT SHADOW THEATRE?
Play by former Irrelevant Show writer Neil Grahn kicks off the 2018-2910 run
How many of us have wracked our brains for ways to generate cash to extend our tenuous lifestyles? Scrambling through the jewelry box for that ring from grandmother that you never liked anyway, knowing it may fetch $50 at the local gold-trading outlet, is an alternative. But that only works once.
Imagine, however, having unexpected access to the comfortable pension of an oldtimer no longer shuffling among us. That’s the kind of bounty that the cash-strapped can only dream of. Hence the appeal of the latest show at Shadow Theatre and the last of the 2017/18 season, Fly Me to the Moon, debuting April 26 at the Varscona Theatre.
The two-hander by Irish playwright Marie Jones (starring Annette Loiselle and Elinor Holt) features two homecare workers in Belfast.
They’re skint, bust, stonybroke when they discover the dead body of one of their clients. Should they call the police, or wait, just a bit mind you, to enjoy some of his pension in the meantime?
“The comedy premise is quite brilliant, but what really hooked me was there is a kind of economic need that these women have that is driving their crime,” said the show’s director, John Hudson, also the artistic director of the 26-year-old theatre. “And writing about that class in Ireland, in Belfast, we don’t see that a lot. And yet it’s uproariously funny.”
The show, like all the shows at Shadow Theatre, is guaranteed to both hit the heart and open the mind — as demanded by the theatre’s vision statement. With that priority in mind, Hudson announced details of the upcoming season in a phone interview this week.
As usual, there are four plays set to gobble up a significant portion of the theatre’s $320,000 annual budget. Hudson seeks balance in the season, programming some drama, some comedy, with an eye to shows that play to the strength of Shadow ensemble members such as Coralie Cairns and Glenn Nelson.
Here’s what theatre fans have to look forward to in 2018-19 at Shadow.
THE COMEDY COMPANY
Shadow looks to profile local talent with at least one play each season. This year, that play is The Comedy Company, written by Edmonton comic writer Neil Grahn, for many years head scribe on the now-defunct The Irrelevant Show.
The play is fiction inspired by fact. It is set during the First World War when an officer with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry decided troops needed a morale boost, and commissioned a group of soldiers to create a comedy troupe. The group was so successful it went on to become the first Canadian comedy troupe to play on Broadway.
The Comedy Company, debuting Oct. 24, is the biggest show of the upcoming season, with five actors (so far including Sheldon Elter, Andrew MacdonaldSmith, Julien Arnold and Steven Greenfield) and two musicians in the cast.
“They found humour in the misery of what was going on around them and they became wildly successful,” said Hudson of the story’s roots. “They were going to perform for the king, but one died and the other lost his leg. Being in the troupe didn’t mean they didn’t have to fight.”
MISS TEEN
Balancing the all-male cast in the first show of the season, the second show, Miss Teen, stars four women, including Kristi Hansen and Patricia Cerra.
The play, described as a tender comedy, examines what happens when a young woman has a chance to lift her family from poverty after winning a beauty contest. The world premiere kicks off on Jan. 23 and is written by Vancouver playwright Michele Riml, the author of the wildly successful Sexy Laundry, which first played at Shadow in 2007.
LUNG
On stage next March is LUNG, directed by former Edmontonian John Lachlan- Stewart, and starring Beth Graham and Chris Bullough. The British relationship play is penned by Duncan MacMillian and contemplates the choices of a couple thinking about starting a family in the face of threats such as global warming.
“There’s no set, so it’s just on the actors and the director to create the whole world,” said Hudson.
VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE
Rounding off the season in May of 2019 is Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, a play that Hudson has long loved but had tucked in his back pocket waiting for just the right gap in just the right season. Penned by American superstar playwright Christopher Durang, the play won a Tony for best play on Broadway in 2013. Starring Coralie Cairns, the story pits middle-aged siblings against each other in a giddy farce with Chekhovian themes.
Opening night for Fly Me to the Moon is April 26. For tickets, or further information about the upcoming season, visit shadowtheatre.org or call 780-434-5564.