SPECTACULAR SEASON
This year the Arts Club features five Broadway musicals, a pair of world premieres and the return of Nicola Cavendish. THEATRE
Mary Poppins, merry puppets and miserable French peasants return to the Arts Club for the 2014- 15 season. The two smash hits from the theatre’s current 50th- anniversary celebrations — Mary Poppins and Avenue Q — and a remount of Les Misérables are among the marquee acts for the theatre’s upcoming 19- show season.
Other headliners include Philip Marlowe, Martin Luther King and Joan of Arc in a season that features five Broadway musicals, a pair of world premieres and the return of Nicola Cavendish.
The new season launches Sept. 17 at the Stanley with the off- Broadway hit 4000 Miles, featuring Cavendish on the Arts Club stage for the first time since the 2009- 10 season. The beloved B. C. actress stars in the story of a 91- year- old New Yorker who finds herself rooming with her 21- year- old.
“It will be such a treat to work on stage with just a pack of young actors 40 years younger than myself,” Cavendish says. “Exhilarating and nutritious, I’d say.”
The production is directed by longtime Vancouver favourite Roy Surette.
Meg Roe ( The Penelopiad) returns to the classics in October as the leading saint in George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. Expect sparks beyond the usual flames since the production is directed by Electric Company co- founder Kim Collier, who plugged Hamlet into the iPad era for Bard on the Beach.
“Meg is perfect for the role and I have long been fascinated with the truly dramatic life of Joan of Arc,” Collier says.
The season features two world premieres by Vancouver- based writers. Shawn Macdonald’s love story Sister Judy tells the story of a popular theology professor challenged by a student ( February 2015 at the Revue). Patrick McDonald is set to direct. And Aaron Bushkowsky has adapted Raymond Chandler’s noir classic Farewell My Lovely ( April 2015, Granville Island Stage).
“It’s a great novel full of strong female characters and as full of atmosphere as a blues bar in a shady part of east L. A. in 1941,” Collier says.
Other season highlights include director Janet Wright ( Clybourne Park) staging The Mountaintop — a dramatic reimagining of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and legacy set in a Memphis, Tenn., hotel the night before his assassination. ( February 2015, Granville Island Stage).
The Granville Island Stage series opens with the return of the classic comedy Educating Rita ( Sept. 25). The Revue Stage season launches in October with Vancouver writer- performer Carmen Aguirre’s autobiographical adventures in Blue Box. The production, written by and starring the author of the bestselling Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter, rocked the Cultch in 2012 and has been touring Canada ever since.
The Arts Club’s Christmas presence consists of Mary Poppins, Avenue Q and A Twisted Christmas Carol, an improvised spin on the Dickens classic by the comedy troupe Rock Paper Scissors.
The season closes in July 2015 with Godspell ( Granville Island Stage) and a remount of one of the theatre’s alltime hits, Les Misérables ( Stanley).
The Arts Club is also touring three productions through B. C. — Avenue Q, The Odd Couple and The Foreigner.
For the Arts Club’s complete 2014- 15 season lineup, visit artsclub. com