Theatre Calgary's 2023-24 season mixes native expertise with worldwide performs

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The newly minted creative director of Theatre Calgary hails its upcoming lineup as a season of latest beginnings.

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“For me, it’s undoubtedly a starting. That is the primary time I’ve ever programmed a season of performs as a result of I’ve by no means been a creative director of an organization earlier than,” says Stafford Arima, who has been working internationally as a contract director for greater than 20 years.

His first season, 2018-19, shall be Theatre Calgary’s 51st.

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“Our present season is a celebration of Theatre Calgary’s first 50 years. With it, we’re trying again at what the corporate has achieved in these 50 years. Now we should look forward at what we are able to and should obtain.”

When Arima arrived final spring to take over the corporate, he instantly immersed himself in every thing TC was doing and that meant attending readings of the Fuse workshops of performs in progress, considered one of which was Tara Beagan’s Honour Beat.

“Tara Beagan is likely one of the main Indigenous writers in Canada so I used to be excited that she was bringing her latest play to Theatre Calgary and that was earlier than I even heard a phrase of it,” recollects Arima, who provides he was moved to laughter and tears on the studying.

“It was a bare-bones script in growth, but it surely was really compelling.

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“Tara has written 4 actually wealthy Indigenous characters, however the great thing about the play is that you simply don’t should be Indigenous to attach with this story and with these feelings. It could be a really particular household, however the household points she is coping with are so common.

“Will probably be so thrilling to have this new work premiere on our Calgary stage.”

When he entered that rehearsal room at TC, Arima was additionally excited to see Canadian actor and activist Michelle Thrush there.

“I do know Michelle’s unimaginable work in movie and tv. I figured she was one of many actors for Honour Beat, however she launched herself because the director.

“If anybody can correctly honour the voices of those Indigenous characters in Tara’s play, it’s Michelle. She is a good visionary and an ideal collaborator.”

Honour Beat, the story of a pair of sisters who face off over the deathbed of their mom, will run at TC Sept. 2-29.

The second of TC’s three world premieres within the upcoming season is Mary and Max: A New Musical, which is able to run Oct. 14 to Nov. 10.

Primarily based on the 2009 Australian brief Claymation movie, Mary and Max is the story of two unlikely pen buddies. Mary is a lonely, 10-year-old Australian woman who strikes up a correspondence with Max, a 44-year-old New Yorker with Asperger’s syndrome.

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Arima says the story and its characters are “quirky, partaking and thrilling.

“I’ve been engaged on this musical for nearly 5 years with its creators, Bobby Cronin and Crystal Skillman. Bobby’s rating … is magical and Crystal’s e book tickles the humorous bone whereas it tugs on the heartstrings.

“Bobby and Crystal got here to Calgary to be a part of the casting for the present and agreed that the expertise that got here by means of the door was extraordinary. We’re all excited in regards to the artistic course of that lies forward for us,” says Arima, who shall be directing Mary and Max: A New Musical.

He readily admits “musicals are my ardour and to have the ability to give life to a brand new work is at all times a particular expertise.”

Theatre Calgary’s vacation present would be the seventh operating of former creative director Dennis Garnhum’s stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s going to run Nov. 29 to Dec. 23.

“This might need been the yr to strive a brand new model of A Christmas Carol as a result of we shall be celebrating Stephen Hair’s twenty fifth anniversary as Scrooge. We might have given him one thing new, however I noticed the manufacturing and liked it.

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“It did extraordinarily effectively box-office-wise, which implies Calgarians find it irresistible, too. Stephen likes it so we are able to take a look at modifications sooner or later, however not this yr.”

From Jan. 13 to Feb. 9, TC will current its third world premiere with Growth X, written, directed and produced by Rick Miller. It’s a sequel to Growth, which received its begin on the 2015 Excessive Efficiency Rodeo. It’s since been carried out 320 instances.

“Once I noticed Rick Miller’s manufacturing of Growth, which was an infinite hit at Theatre Calgary, I informed him he’d given all of the Child Boomers an ideal piece of nostalgia, however I requested him if he’d ever thought of a sequel that might do the identical for Technology X, which is my era and his era.

“I used to be thrilled along with his reply. He mentioned completely and agreed to start engaged on Growth X instantly. He has been maintaining us concerned and up to date.

For his Feb. 24 to March 23 slot, Arima has scheduled Phyllis Nagy’s stage adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s highly effective 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, whose heroine Hester Prynne is accused of adultery by her Puritan village and compelled to put on a purple letter proclaiming her perceived sin.

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“Phyllis’ model of The Scarlet Letter undoubtedly offers Hester extra of a feminist sensibility than Hawthorne did,” says Arima. “Hester shouldn’t be a sufferer on this model. She takes possession of this expertise.

“This isn’t a dusty outdated story. Given what is going on on the planet in the present day, it couldn’t be extra related. We’re nonetheless coping with problems with marginalizing and judging girls. It’s going to be a riveting expertise given Montreal’s Micheline Chevrier (considered one of Canada’s main feminist artists)  has agreed to direct it.”

TC’s principal stage season at Arts Commons Max Bell Theatre will shut April 7 to Might 11 with the musical Billy Elliot, directed by Arima and choreographed by Yukichi Hattori, who lately retired as principal dancer with the Alberta Ballet Firm.

“Yukichi and I are going to showcase the unimaginable dancers we’ve on this metropolis. 

“This isn’t going to be a replica of any Billy Elliot earlier than it. This shall be a Calgary Billy Elliot,” insists Arima, who feels personally related to the story of a boy combating for his dream regardless of naysayers round him.

“The message of Billy Elliot is the story of the goals that exist in all of us. Billy didn’t need to field. He wished to bop. Individuals informed him he shouldn’t and that he couldn’t, however he wouldn’t hear.

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“That’s what individuals informed a younger Stafford Arima when he mentioned he wished to direct on Broadway someday. Like Billy, I wouldn’t let individuals destroy my dream and I do know there are numerous individuals on the market who’ve had the same expertise.”

Arima needs Theatre Calgary’s manufacturing to be extra than simply one other present; he needs it to be an occasion.

Theatre Calgary’s Shakespeare by the Bow providing this yr shall be Two Gents of Verona tailored by Dean Paul Gibson and Jenna Turk. Will probably be directed by Dean Paul Gibson, whom audiences will keep in mind for his tour de pressure performances in The Drowsy Chaperone, Main Barbara and Vigil.

Arima says he wished his first season at TC to be “a various season. I need a little bit of the outdated offered in a brand new method, which is what we can have in The Scarlet Letter and I wished the brand new, which we can have in Honour Beat, Growth X and Mary and Max: A New Musical.

“I wished issues to be acquainted, which we can have with Stephen Hair as Scrooge and I wished the unfamiliar, which we can have with our manufacturing of Billy Elliot as a result of it will likely be a brand new and thrilling model of a well-established present.”