THEATRE ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ALIVE

ALBERTA THEATRE PROJECTS 2009/2010 SEASON

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 9th, 2009 12 PM (MT) – Alberta Theatre Projects announced the 2009/2010 Season in an informal and playful season launch, on the ConocoPhillips STAGE in the Martha Cohen Theatre.

This launch marks Artistic Director Bob White’s final season announcement of his 22 year career at Alberta Theatre Projects and the last major announcement as the company’s Artistic Director. “I am really proud of the eclecticism and diversity that will be seen in the playbill next year,” said Mr. White, “I look forward to seeing all of these plays from the other side of the footlights.”

In attendance at the event, Artistic Director Designate Vanessa Porteous commented, “"Bob's 09/10 season brims with theatrical excitement all year long. ATP is where you come for theatre about what it's like to be alive right now. I can't wait."” Ms. Porteous begins her term in May.

Alberta Theatre Projects season is comprised of four Cornerstone Plays interspersed with a Family Holiday Presentation and the 24th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays. This season offers a staggeringly fresh cornucopia of theatrical adventure: a dog’s-eye view of Elizabethan England in a wonderfully absurd and insightful comedy Shakespeare’s Dog; one of the most endearing and emotionally affecting tour-de-force performances in I, Claudia; the classic Wind in the Willows inspired toady tale for the entire family in Toad of Toad Hall; four brand new Canadian creations in the 24th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays; and the work of two of Canada’s most celebrated and innovative contemporary theatre artists, Ronnie Burkett in Billy Twinkle: Requiem For a Golden Boy and Daniel MacIvor’s Communion.

Alberta Theatre Projects 2009/2010 SEASON

Shakespeare’s Dog by Rick Chafe, adapted from the novel by Leon Rooke

SEPTEMBER 22 – OCTOBER 10, 2009

Get a fresh perspective on young William’s life – straight from the eyes of Shakespeare’s dog. With four legs, a keen eye and a sharp tongue, Hooker the dog unleashes the story of how the Stratford rogue became the world’s most famous playwright. With his sights on London and his family in Stratford, Shakespeare is torn between the two loves of his life: the theatre and his wife. William’s family lives in a wild world full of unpredictable creatures: beasts, beggars, witch hunters and actors. In the Elizabethan era lust, love and lives collide, and it is anyone’s guess who is top dog.

“Behind every great man there may be a woman, but when it comes to William Shakespeare it seems there was a dog as well.” - Ottawa Citizen

I, Claudia by Kristen Thomson

A Crow’s Theatre Production

OCTOBER 20 — NOVEMBER 8, 2009

This extraordinary one-woman show maps the raw but beautiful interior life of a misfit adolescent. Claudia, twelve and three-quarters, finds herself suffering from the triple afflictions of puberty, unpopularity and her parents’ divorce. Using four astonishingly expressive masks, the performer evokes the anguished Claudia, her grandfather, her dad’s new girlfriend and the school janitor. Alternately wrenchingly sad and funny, I, Claudia casts a spell of rare power in the theatre. Speaking to us from her school’s boiler room, the place where she hides the treasures she smuggles from her father’s apartment and where she monitors her goldfish for the upcoming science fair, Claudia shares her startlingly poignant insight into the grown-up world that surrounds her.

“…hilariously funny, totally unexpected and unimpeachably true.” - The National post

Family Holiday Presentation

Toad of Toad Hall by Philip Goulding, adapted from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

NOVEMBER 25 – DECEMBER 27, 2009

Meet the famous trickster of Toad Hall: the sharp-witted, finely groomed Mr. Toad. A sucker for the finer things in life, Mr. Toad has gotten himself into a mole-hole that he may not be able to dig himself out of! After stealing one of the finest cars to toot down a dirt road, Mr. Toad is now an infamous outlaw, hopping trains and river rafts, trying to out scheme officials at every turn. But while he bounds about the countryside, trying to save his toady hide, he’s left behind a pack of friends that fret over him as the seconds tick by. What’s worse, without Toad around, Ratty, Badger and Mole haven’t been able to defend themselves against the scheming Weasels that have overthrown their home! Will this group of rogue rodents steal Toad Hall for good? Goulding’s wildly hilarious adaptation of Grahame’s classic takes us on a countryside ride with the most comical creatures to show us that we have to stick together if we don’t want things to fall apart.

24th Annual Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays

FEBRUARY 3 - MARCH 7, 2010

Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre by Larry Tremblay, translated by Chantal Bilodeau

Scratch the surface of any story and underneath you find layer upon layer of fact…or fiction. Mark Killman–a feared but much admired director–draws inspiration from Abraham Lincoln’s assassination to create a show about the schizophrenia of America. He hires two actors to reenact the assassination through the comic characters of Laurel and Hardy. And he keeps for himself the role of Abraham Lincoln’s wax figure. Absurdly hilarious and haunting, this play is an unforgettable mystery that asks the question: how can we ever know who we are and what is true when the world we know is shifting beneath us?

How Do I Love Thee? by Florence Gibson

The union of poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning was a marriage of two of the most gifted artists and passionate lovers in literary history. Caught up in magnificent words, and each other, the couple escapes their dreary lives in England to a thrilling new life together in Italy. But when the bright romance and excitement of their whirlwind courtship fades, fears and addictions creep out of the shadows and threaten their work, their love and their lives. Two great poets struggle with the deep and mysterious forces that lie beneath their words of love and ask the question: How do I love thee? Vibrant and poetic, this play brings a contemporary energy to a classic tale of romance.

Tyland by Greg MacArthur

After she is arrested on a mischief charge, pregnant artist Ami is given the option of paying fines she cannot afford or going to live on a small northern island. This government program is part of a plan to claim the far north by ensuring it is inhabited by women and children. Ami shares the small, wild island with Karen, a woman desperate to build a meaningful life. When their uneasy co-habitation is rocked by tragedy, they must learn how to protect themselves against the hostile world around them and each other. This smart, surreal thriller tests our ideas about sharing and ownership.

BD&P Stage 2

The Highest Step in the World by David van Belle & Eric Rose

In association with Ghost River Theatre

Launch into space for a unique solo performance in an immersive environment created by aerial choreography, light and animated projections! Inspired by the true story of test pilot Joseph Kittinger and his historic 100,000 ft. jump from a weather balloon, our playwrights-in-residence explore the lives of several characters grappling with the nature of risk and the leaps of faith that we all make in our lives. An epic story that celebrates the ingenuity of our minds and the resilience of our hearts!

Alberta Theatre Projects presents

Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes in

Billy Twinkle: REQUIEM FOR A GOLDEN BOY Created and performed by Ronnie Burkett

MARCH 18 – APRIL 11, 2010

Billy Twinkle is a middle-aged cruise ship puppeteer who dazzles audiences with his Stars in Miniature marionette niteclub act. His saucy burlesque stripper Rusty titillates the tourists, octogenarian Bunny invokes sidesplitting laughter with the inflatable balloon in his pants, Bumblebear juggles and rollerskates and steals the hearts of every audience, and society dame Biddy Bantam Brewster brings a bit of highbrow hilarity to the high seas with her drunken aria. Billy is the best in the business and on top of the world as he floats along through life. Until he is fired by the cruiseline. Standing at the edge of the ship contemplating a watery demise, Billy is abruptly called back to reality when his dead mentor Sid Diamond appears as a hand puppet. Sid literally will not leave his side, and forces Billy to re-enact his life as a puppet show in order to remember and rekindle the passion Billy once had for puppets, people and the dream of a life that sparkles. For anyone stuck in the middle – mid-career, mid-love, mid-life – caught between our own past and future, this requiem for a golden boy shines a little light on the wonder of youth meeting the wisdom of age with a kick in the pants to finish what we started.

Audience Advice: Not suitable for children

“A masterpiece. Billy Twinkle brings us a world class master at the peak of his powers.” —Edmonton Sun

Communion by Daniel MacIvor

APRIL 27 – MAY 15, 2010

“We’re all so desperate. We’re all so scared. We don’t really know anything.”

These are the words of Ann, a young woman who has been trying for years, in vain, to save her mother’s soul. Lida, a recovering alcoholic with a tumultuous past, seeks out her estranged daughter, Ann, to deliver some serious news that will affect both of their lives. But as Lida works toward mending the core relationship of her life, she also has a profound effect on her therapist, Carolyn. Carolyn once believed she had all the answers. After Lida, she isn’t so sure anymore. This funny and touching play is the latest from the esteemed and wildly popular 2008 Siminovitch Prize-winning playwright Daniel MacIvor.

For tickets, please call the Alberta Theatre Projects Ticket Office at (403) 294-7402 or visit www.ATPlive.com.

Written by :

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