Staging A Revival

New theatre season is good news after a tough summer

What with the plagues, the weather and the Big Blackout, Toronto's feeling a bit besieged lately. So here are 10 good things to look forward to on city stages:
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: Expect lots of familiar friends this year. For instance, Mirvish Productions remounts the perennially popular local musical 2 Pianos, 4 Hands in September and Djanet Sears' The Adventures Of A Black Girl In Search Of God from November to March. Tarragon brings back Karen Hines' strange romantic musical Hello! Hello in November, while Factory Theatre reprises Through the Eyes, about the sculpting of Bernini's bust of Louis XIV, in early summer 2004.
TIGER TALE: Factory opens its season with Tiger of Malaya by charismatic Vancouver performer and playwright Hiro Kanagawa. Apart from his theatre work, Kanagawa is familiar for recurring roles on TV shows like Smallville and Cold Squad. His new play is about Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was tried after WWII for a terrible massacre in Manila.
FOR PETE'S SAKE: From October 16 to December 7 we get a chance to see Pete Postlethwaite in the internationally acclaimed one-man show Scaramouche Jones at the Winter Garden. Postlethwaite portrays a picaresque clown who reveals himself in the removing of seven masks, simultaneously reliving the last millennium. Postlethwaite was Oscar-nominated for his starring role in In the Name of the Father, and also appears in (among others) The Usual Suspects, The Shipping News and Between Strangers with Sophia Loren, directed by her son Eduardo Ponti.
BUDDIES AT 25: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre celebrates a quarter-century of cutting-edge theatre with a season that includes remounts of Damien Atkins' popular girl-song show Real Live Girl in December and the gritty thriller Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love in the spring.
BROADWAY BABIES: No need to visit New York this year, since the Mirvishes are bringing us two of Manhattan's most popular musical-comedy tickets: The Producers (opening November 18) and Hairspray (from May 1).
RING SAGA: In April, the COC's long-heralded Ring Cycle launches with Wagner's Die Walküre, directed by Atom Egoyan.
PUPPET MASTER: Ronnie Burkett, everybody's favourite puppeteer for grown-ups, brings a new show, Provenance, to CanStage, beginning January 9.
NOT YOUR USUAL PAGLIACCI: From November 13, Theatre Passe Muraille offers Tequila Vampire Matinee, a very unusual, Mexican-flavoured take on Pagliacci, with the music of Kevin Quain of the group Mad Bastards.
ACADIAN ODYSSEY: The epic musical Pélagie, An Acadian Odyssey, by Vincent de Tourdonnet (Snappy Tales) and Allen Cole (The Crimson Veil, The Juniper Tree) premieres in April at CanStage.
PLAYWRIGHTS WE LOVE: Among several exciting openings by great writers, Montrealer Carole Fréchette, winner of the prestigious Siminovitch Prize, brings her Helen's Necklace to Tarragon in October. November sees Adam Pettle's Mosley and Me at CanStage. Tarragon presents Rune Arlidge by Michael Healey (The Drawer Boy) in March, and in the same month Theatre Passe Muraille offers the first glimpse of John Mighton's Half Life, directed by Daniel Brooks.

Publication Date: 2003-09-07
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