Shakespeare, The Beatles and Steve Martin share in Theatre Calgary's 2023-24 season

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For its 56th season, Theatre Calgary goes to let huge names like Agatha Christie, Steve Martin, The Beatles and Shakespeare share the limelight with Alberta playwrights Farren Timoteo, Anna Cummer, Geoffrey Simon Brown, Maria Crooks and Caroline Russell-King.

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This July and August, Shakespeare by the Bow will as soon as once more be Shakespeare on the Go as a troupe of seven rising artists will take Cummer’s adaptation of A Midsummer Evening’s Dream to varied places across the metropolis. Theatre Calgary’s creative director Stafford Arima insists it’s his firm’s dream to finally return to their nook of Prince’s Island Park however building woes close to the park made it too troublesome this yr.  He praises Cummer’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy, saying “It’s such a enjoyable and witty adaptation achieved in a vaudevillian fashion that has the actors doubling and even tripling in roles.”

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TC’s major stage season of seven performs launches on the Max Bell Theatre on Sept. 12 with Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, directed by Craig Corridor. Arima is happy as a result of “that is the primary time in TC’s historical past we’ve achieved a Christie and what higher one to do than her most well-known and hottest. I known as Vertigo Theatre’s creative director Jack Grinhaus and advised him what we have been contemplating, and he generously gave us his blessing. He’s not doing a Christie this coming season.”

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From Oct. 17 to Nov. 11, TC will current Alberta playwright and actor Farren Timoteo’s solo present, Made In Italy, in The Martha Cohen Theatre, house of Alberta Theatre Initiatives. This present, which has been touring to nice success since 2016, tells the story of Timoteo and his household residing in Jasper within the Nineteen Seventies. “It is a tour de pressure efficiency during which Farren performs each member of his household and it’s one Calgarians ought to have the chance to see. We wanted a extra intimate house than the Max Bell Theatre to showcase it and the Martha Cohen was obtainable. Theatre Calgary has beforehand achieved exhibits in varied theatres in Arts Commons, together with The Massive Secret Theatre, The Engineered Air Theatre, ATP and The Jack Singer.” It is going to be directed by Daryl Cloran, creative director of Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre.

Starting Nov. 28, TC’s vacation basic, A Christmas Carol, returns in what Arima calls “its full glory.”  It’s the Geoffrey Simon Brown adaptation first seen in 2019 and it consists of about 70 individuals working backstage between the solid, crew and dressers. There can be one huge change to the present within the function of Scrooge. “Stephen Hair is retiring his crimson scarf so we’re searching for a Calgary actor to exchange him however Stephen will at all times be part of TC’s Christmas Carol custom,” mentioned Arima.

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He calls Steve Martin’s surreal comedy Meteor Bathe, which opens Jan. 23 within the Max Bell Theatre, “an important, hilarious play about relationships. It’s a type of modern retelling of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It’s a beautiful approach to introduce Calgarians to Steve Martin, the playwright. We all know him extra as an actor and humorist however he’s additionally an completed playwright.”

On Feb. 27, 2024, TC will current Daryl Cloran’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, which options the music of The Beatles. First produced in 2021 for Vancouver’s Bard on the Seashore, Cloran’s jukebox mashup of Shakespeare and The Beatles has wowed audiences in Edmonton and Chicago and is again at Bard on the Seashore till Sept. 30. “Daryl’s adaptation showcases a few of The Beatles’ biggest hits in one among Shakespeare’s hottest comedies,” says Arima.

From April 9-28, TC, in affiliation with ATP, will current the world premiere of Selma Burke by Calgarians Maria Crooks and Caroline Russell-King. The play is concerning the Black American sculptor who performed a serious function within the Harlem Renaissance motion of the Nineteen Twenties and Thirties. After studying this script, Arima determined to current a workshop studying for Black Historical past Month in February. He says the response from the general public, the board, and the creative crew was so enthusiastic he determined the play deserved a full manufacturing. “It’s such a powerful, joyous play, it has the potential of reaching American audiences.” Arima is happy that this would be the first collaboration with ATP. “It is a optimistic step in a course we must be taking. Pooling our sources won’t solely profit the play but additionally our two corporations.”

Arima says he’s nonetheless “crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on contracts for the ultimate play however it will likely be a musical and one that’s based mostly on a extremely popular film. We must always be capable to announce it later subsequent month.”

Season ticket subscriptions are on sale now at theatrecalgary.com and single tickets will go on sale in August.