Hobson's Selection: Morpheus, StoryBook and Downstage getting ready new seasons

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As April attracts to an in depth so do most firms’ seasons which implies, for a lot of, the main target is on what’s coming subsequent.

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Morpheus Theatre is returning to its roots with Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Yeomen of the Guard whereas StoryBook and Downstage Theatre have introduced their upcoming seasons.

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For 27 years, Morpheus Theatre has been closing every season with a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. These vigorous musicals proceed to be Morpheus’s good luck attraction.

Sean Anderson, Morpheus’ creative director, says the concept to current Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance within the firm’s second season proved an unlimited breakthrough.

“Once we noticed how a lot folks loved the present and the way large a response we obtained, we programmed The Mikado the next season and it was a fair greater success. After that, we caught with the format of ending every season with one among their operettas.”

Over their 28 seasons, Morpheus has offered 10 of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 14 exhibits.

“That is solely the second time we’ve offered The Yeomen of the Guard. We’ve accomplished The Pirates of Penzance 4 instances. It’s the one our audiences ask for probably the most.”

Anderson says Gilbert and Sullivan stay widespread 150 years after they started their 25-year collaboration as a result of “Sullivan’s music is so catchy and the topsy-turvy nature of Gilbert’s tales is pure enjoyable. Often, the whole lot works out ultimately and that’s what folks need. Sarcastically, Yeomen is the one main exception. There are a couple of sad lead characters when this story wraps up.”

Morpheus has turn out to be so synonymous with Gilbert and Sullivan that 12 years in the past Anderson created G&B For Children.

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“The kids at all times produce the identical present as our grownup firm. They use our set however have their very own costumes and props and we at all times schedule their present for the mid-run of ours.”

The grownup Yeomen incorporates a solid of 26 performers underneath the path of Kyle Gould. The path of the junior Yeomen is shared by Ana Mulino and Janos Zeller with Winnifred Hume appearing as musical director for each firms.

The Yeomen of the Guard runs within the Pumphouse’s Victor Mitchell Theatre from April 28 to Might 6 with the junior model working Might 1 and a pair of.

Tickets for all performances can be found at morpheustheatre.ca.

STORYBOOK IS GEARING UP TO BE EXTRAORDINARY

For its upcoming forty seventh season, StoryBook is scheduling 9 productions that remember the extraordinary in everybody.

StoryBook’s creative director JP Thibodeau says the performs he’s chosen “present how bizarre folks can impression these round them by way of extraordinary actions, from easy gestures of kindness to grand acts of bravery.”

The present StoryBook season will shut with the Might 12 to June 3 run of the Broadway musical Newsies with the forty seventh season kicking off July 7 by way of Aug. 4 with the corporate’s widespread out of doors live shows Singers@Sundown which function a few of StoryBook’s alumni and their mates performing well-known and unique works.

This yr’s summer season intensive, which sees college students create a musical from scratch, will function the 1972 musical Pippin which Thibodeau will direct for a run from Aug. 18 to Sept. 19. It’s the story of a younger prince desperately trying to find ardour and journey however truly discovering who he actually is and what’s most significant in life.

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Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan will direct the runaway British hit household present Honk! impressed by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling from Oct. 13 to Nov. 4.

StoryBook’s annual fundraiser The Prime Secret Musical will run on Nov. 6. This yr’s present, a slick, hilarious model of the Fred Ebb and John Kander musical, murder-mystery comedy Curtains performed to an enthusiastic sold-out crowd on Might 10.

The vacation present subsequent season would be the Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang primarily based on the 1968 movie of the identical title and will probably be directed by Javier Vilalta.

Additionally for the vacation, Thibodeau will direct a bare-bones, one-man model of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol tailored by Douglas H. Baker. It is going to run Nov. 27 to Dec. 29.

Shelby Reinitz will direct StoryBook’s A Wrinkle in Time tailored for the stage from Madeleine L’Engle’s fantasy novel by John Glore. It is going to run Feb. 9 to March 9.

StoryBook’s second annual fundraiser known as Miscast and this present permits performers to do large musical numbers for which they’d not historically be solid. It is going to run April 27 and 28. Cash from this fundraiser goes to the Ellie Tims Mission which provides scholarships to deserving candidates who might in any other case not afford to take musical theatre courses at StoryBook.

The forty seventh season will shut with Thibodeau directing Meredith Wilson’s 1957 basic household musical comedy The Music Man which has simply ended its Broadway revival starring Hugh Jackman.

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All exhibits will probably be held within the Beddington Theatre Arts Centre. Go to https://www.storybooktheatre.org/

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED FROM DOWNSTAGE THEATRE

Downstage Theatre’s twentieth anniversary season will function collaborations with The Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation, the UCalgary Faculty of Artistic and Performing Arts, Good-looking Alice and Verb Theatre.

Downstage’s creative director Clare Preuss says the corporate’s twentieth season “will honour founding creative director Simon Mallett’s custom of bringing celebrated scripts to the native stage with Erin Protect’s Stunning Man, in addition to attempting one thing completely new as we host the GoGo Battles’ wrestling-meets-burlesque sequence within the Motel Theatre.”

The brand new season begins Nov. 17-19 within the Motel Theatre with All Good Issues Should Start which options staged readings of quick performs from Local weather Change Theatre Motion.

Downstage, Verb and Good-looking Alice mix sources and skills to provide Erin Shields Stunning Man, a biting satire in regards to the portrayal of girls in movie and tv. Three mates take the viewers on a whirlwind tour of a world the place girls rule society as politicians, hunters, queens and policewomen, all of the whereas gazing on the semi-nude Stunning Man. Preuss says it’s a “joyful comedy that exposes the insidious and poisonous elements of widespread tradition with a way of playful audacity. You’ll by no means watch your binge-worthy TV exhibits the identical manner once more.” This present runs Feb. 29 to March 10 within the Motel Theatre.

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Downstage’s collaboration with the college will lead to a present referred to as Magnetic Our bodies about physique picture and can function a sequence of quick performances created and carried out by college students from the Faculty of Artistic and Performing Arts. It is going to run within the Motel Theatre from April 5-7.

The season will shut with GoGo Battles: OMG Somebody Dies! April 15 to April 29 within the Motel Theatre. Preuss says this sequence of six exhibits “has all of the drama of wrestling however with homicide. There’s a one-time-only present each night time for six nights. Viewers members are invited to gather all of the clues to determine who survives and who dies.”

Tickets for Downstage’s upcoming season will go on sale within the fall. Extra data is obtainable at downstage.ca.