GREAT SCOT!

The James Plays Trilogy – three historical plays straight from Scotland about three Stewart kings named, you guessed it, James – is proving to be a very big deal. Perhaps the only theatre trilogy in history to draw comparisons to both Shakespeare and Game of Thrones, crews in Toronto are repurposing the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station into a performance space to house them as the crown jewel of the Luminato Festival’s 10th anniversary season (June 1026). The only North American performances of this seven-anda-half-hour trilogy are also quite the high note for festival artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt to ride out on, as he steps down from his post after five seasons. Scottish kings Life Reimagined: The Science, Art and Opportunity of Midlife.

Of course, some mid-life twists are more incredible than others, like Governor General Award-winning scribe Diane Schoemperlen’s six-year love affair with a prison aside, other festival highlights include the celebrated Rufus Does Judy, a musical tribute to Judy Garland’s Carnegie Hall comeback in 1961 by Canadian singersongwriter (and Weisbrodt’s husband) Rufus Wainwright, an

This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison and Other Complications.

Pulitzer Prizewinner Annie Proulx explores the trials of generations descended from 17th-century New World woodcutters in the sprawl- ing Barkskins while a police officer struggles with one last case and confronting his own tangled history in Principles to Live By from Gillerwinner David Adams Richards.

Celebrated Canuck novelist Lisa Moore makes interactive theatre-meets-headline news show called Situation Rooms and the return of the massively popular Polish festival of soundscapes, music and public spaces, Unsound Toronto. www. luminatofestival.com —MC Flannery, Sex Scary Old intimacy to caregiving among the senior set – about which the New York Times wrote, “Ms. Heyman’s earthiest and most sustained and impressive writing finds its center of gravity at crotch level.” Put that on the book jacket. — MC

Don’t fall victim to the typical hysteria surrounding middle age – panic, regret, a lowerback butterfly tattoo. Mid-life should be a time of possibility and new beginnings, opines journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty in inmate in her first foray into young adult literature witha tale of high school life and love potions.And then there’s 74-year-old Arlene Heyman’s first book, the short story collection– exploring everything from

Game of Thrones Stewart style: The James Plays Trilogy