20 Canadian plays to celebrate 20 years
Soulpepper to commemorate anniversary season with its first tour south of border
Canadian theatre has never seen anything like the Soulpepper Theatre Company’s 20th anniversary season.
“We have 20 plays being put on in one year which have a Canadian author attached,” says founding artistic director Albert Schultz about Tuesday’s announcement. “It’s the largest season of Canadian plays ever presented anywhere in the world in a single year.”
The 2016-17 season, which coincides with Canada’s150th birthday in 2017, includes titles from the Canadian theatrical canon such as Billy Bishop Goes To War (July 1 to Aug. 5, 2017) and Michael Hollingsworth’s Dora-winning Confederation Part I: Confederation & Riel and Confederation Part II: Scandal & Rebellion (June 9 and 23, respectively, through Aug. 19, 2017).
Hollingsworth will rework his Confederation plays before they’re remounted.
These Canadian histories have been programmed alongside newer hits such as Kim’s Convenience( Feb. 8 to 25, 2017), which will debut as a TV series on CBC this October, and I’m Doing This for You ( May 3 to 6, 2017), the cringeworthy comedy written by and starring Haley McGee that played sold-out houses at Theatre Passe Muraille, the Storefront Theatre and Videofag.
Order of Canada-winning playwright Judith Thompson continues her work with the RARE Theatre Company with Wildfire (May 2 to May 20, 2017), about the ways in which love is complicated by Down syndrome, starring a troupe of actors who have Down themselves.
“The fact that Judith is so committed to this I find very moving and laudable,” Schultz says.
Schultz himself will direct The Gospel at Colonus (May 5 to June 3, 2017), an African-American musical adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy Oedipus with a gospel-inspired score. It is one of four international works to be presented beside the 20 Canadian titles, along with the British farce Noises Off (Sept. 21 to Oct. 22, 2016); Piya Behrupiya (Oct. 27 to 29), a dance-infused musical adaptation of Twelfth Night from India; and It’s A Wonderful Life (Dec. 9 to 24), part of the Soulpepper Family Festival in December.
Coinciding with Canada’s anniversary, Soulpepper is taking its first tour south of the border, mounting eight productions with 50 artists from June 29 through July 29, 2017 at New York City’s Pershing Square Signature Center, a building, fittingly, designed by Toronto’s Frank Gehry.
“We are basically planting a Canadian flag in the cultural capital of the world as a gesture of our 150th,” Schultz says. The productions will include Soulpepper’s greatest hits such as Spoon River, Alligator Pie and Of Human Bondage.
The U.S. residency will also include Why Not Theatre’s A Brimful of Asha. The production co-stars writer, director and actor Ravi Jain and his mother Asha, who is not a professional actor.
The show will be remounted in Toronto from Nov. 1 through 5th. “Asha has never acted before and she steals the show,” Schultz promises. Subscription tickets to Soulpepper’s 2016-17 season go on sale Aug. 2 at 1 p.m. Single tickets go on sale Aug. 12. For more details, visit soulpepper.ca or call the Young Centre box office at 416-8668666.