Centaur Theatre’s new season enlightening
The theme of the Centaur Theatre’s upcoming 2015- 16 season is “luminous” because the six mainstage productions all shed light on the human condition. From the season- opening The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God by Governor General Award- winning playwright Djanet Sears, to Last Night at the Gayety, a musical satire about Montreal’s Sin City heyday, all six plays are also Canadian contemporary works.
“Our best box office over the years have all been Canadian plays, from the works of Steve Galluccio and Vittorio Rossi to David Fennario and Colleen Curran,” said Centaur artistic director Roy Surette, who officially announced the new season on Wednesday. “We found that these plays would work well together, and Montrealers love Montreal stories.”
The season will kick off with Djanet Sears’s The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, coproduced with the National Arts Centre and in association with Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop. Sears will also direct her play, which tells the story of Lorraine ‘ Rainey’ Johnson, an African-Canadian doctor living in Negro Creek. Rainey is grieving over the loss of her daughter, the end of her marriage and dealing with her ailing father, and questions her belief in God, in an at- times humorous play that runs Sept. 22 to Oct. 18.
“This play has been with me since I was a student at theatre school when I read George Bernard Shaw’s short story The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, and I remember thinking, ‘ That’s a short story about me.’ But it wasn’t,” said Sears in an interview with the Gazette. “I decided then that I would write a play about black people because I wanted us to be the centre of the story. Then one day I wrote that play — this play — and it fit with my adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s title.”
Next up, Surette will direct the Quebec première of Nicholas Billon’s critically acclaimed stage thriller Butcher, about an elderly man accused of being a war criminal. It runs Nov. 3- 29.
The season continues with the world premiere of Concordia University theatre graduate Alexandria Haber’s On This Day, a comedy- drama about a bickering couple driving to a friend’s birthday party, and who may or may not have accidentally hit a young woman. On This Day runs Feb. 9 to March 6, 2016.
The English- language world premiere of Bus Stops, written, directed and choreographed by Théâtre I. N. K artistic director Marilyn Perreault, will run March 1- 27, 2016. Presented in its original French ( Ligne de bus) at Théâtre Aux Écuries last year, Bus Stops is about the hidden dreams, fears and secrets of a group of passengers riding a public bus when an explosion stops the bus dead in its tracks.
Pillow Talk: An Essay on Dreaming by Dulcinea Langfelder explores that hazy place between slumber and consciousness It runs March 29 to April 24, 2016.
Centaur closes their mainstage series with the world premiere of Last Night at the Gayety, created by Rick Blue and George Bowser.
It’s directed by Surette and runs April 19 to May 15, 2016.
For more information on Centaur Theatre’s 2015- 16 season, call 514- 288- 3161 or visit centaurtheatre.com.