COME AND JOIN ARC MEMBERS AND FRIENDS AS WE ANNOUNCE NEXT YEAR’S SEASON.
SUNDAY, MAY 20TH 6PM – 8PM
THE COBOURG – 533 PARLIAMENT STREET, TORONTO
SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT @ 6:30PM
ARC MEMBERS – Reading of “TERRORISM” by The Presnyakov Brothers
LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU THERE!
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The Actors Repertory Company is proud to present the second in its PWYC three-part reading series:
 Terrorism
by The Presnyakov Brothers
Directed by David Jansen Featuring ARC members Gordon Bolan, Deborah Drakeford, John Fitzgerald Jay, Janet Porter and Andre Sills. A powerful, contemporary Russian play about the terror of the everyday in six scenes from urban life … Delayed passengers grumble about a bomb scare at the airport. A man and a woman commit adultery. Office workers bicker while one of their number quietly exits to hang herself. Two grannies in a playground complain about their menfolk and make fun of a man seated on the next bench. Policemen in their barracks scrap amongst themselves. The passengers on the plane finally prepare for take off. By the end we realize these apparently random scenes are in fact linked by an almost invisible thread, subtly indicating that we bear responsibility for one another even in our soulless urban limbo Terrorism paints a picture at once familiar, strange and informative about the moral bankruptcy of the new Russia. The Details: Curtain is 7:30 Join us in reading a text that is new to Toronto and stay for the company! |
Tags: actors, Presnyakov, stage, Terrorism, Theatre
Well, winter is in air, the department stores are playing Christmas music, and that can only mean one thing – time for ARC’s annual holiday fundraiser!
There will be music! Food! A silent auction! And special surprises from the ARC members! In other words, good times. We hope you can join us on December 1, 2011, 7:00 p.m. at Buddies in Bad Times’ Tallulah Cabaret located near College Station at 12 Alexander St. It’ll cost you $15 to get in, money that helps us put on neat stuff like our Theatre Foreplay Reading Series.
And if you can make it (and hey, we get it, it’s a busy time of year), we hope you’ll spread some holiday cheer and make a donation. Your support allows us to perform brave, seldom-seen pieces of theatre every year.
Hope to see you there!
Just a reminder that if you’re looking for some fun entertainment in a low key setting then you should head down to Buddies in Bad Times to Tallulah’s Cabaret for our staged reading of The Open Couple.
The details, just in case you missed them before:
7:30 Curtain.
Pay What You Can
The Open Couple, by Dario Fo & Franca Rame
Featuring Deborah Drakeford, Andre Sills and a brief appearance by Brendan McMurty-Howlett
Directed by Emma Mackenzie Hillier
We look forward to seeing you there!
This coming Sunday, November 13th, the Actors Repertory Company is presenting the first in its 2011/2012 Annual Theatre Foreplay Reading Series. This year we’re presenting three readings, starting with The Open Couple by Dario Fo and Franca Rame. In preparation for the reading I thought that a blog post with a little information about the play and playwrights will hopefully help to whet your appetite for the reading… the specific details:
The Open Couple
By: Dario Fo & Franca Rame
Sunday, November 13th at 7:30 PM
At Buddies In Bad Times in Tallulah’s Cabaret Space
Directed by Emma Mackenzie Hillier
Performed by Deborah Drakeford and Andre Sills
With a special cameo performance by Brendan McMurty-Howlett
The Open Couple
You want to be sexually liberated? Fine. Just ignore your partner’s neurotics in the corner…
Written in the 80′s, Open Couple is a caustic and furious comedy about marriage, sexual liberation, hypocrisy and identity. How far are you willing to compromise in order to keep your marriage? In the case of Dario and Franca’s play apparently quite far. At the behest of her husband, Antonia agrees to an open marriage only to suffer bouts of nerves, frustration and neglect. When she finally adapts to the situation, the roles are reversed and her husband experiences for the first time how it feels to be ignored and shoved aside.
This could certainly be categorized as a feminist play but more than anything it’s a comedy, a little absurdist and very caustic. The play is a great example of what happens when your expectation is flipped on its head.
A little about the playwrights…
Dario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer. His dramatic work employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell’arte, a theatrical style popular with the working classes. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife, actress Franca Rame. He was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature, with the committee highlighting him as a writer “who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden”.
Fo’s works are characterized by criticisms of — among others — organized crime, political corruption, political murders, Catholic policy on abortion and conflict in the Middle East. His plays often depend on improvisation, commedia dell’arte style. His plays — especially Mistero Buffo — have been translated to 30 languages and when they are performed outside Italy, they are often modified to reflect local political and other issues. Fo encourages directors and translators to modify his plays as they see fit, as he finds this in accordance to the commedia dell’arte tradition of on-stage improvisation.
Fo campaigned for mayor of Milan in 2006 – he finished in second place.
Franca Rame is an Italian theatre actress and playwright. She is also the wife of Nobel Prize winning author Dario Fo and the mother of the writer Jacopo Fo.
Franca Rame was born in Parabiago, Lombardy, into a family with a long theatre tradition. She made her theatrical debut in 1951. Shortly thereafter, she met Dario Fo, whom she married in 1954. In 1958, she co-founded the Dario Fo–Franca Rame Theatre Company in Milan, with Fo as the director and writer, and Rame the leading actress and administrator.
Rame continued working with Fo through many plays and several theatre companies, popular success and government censorship. In the 1970s, Rame began writing plays (often stage monologues) of her own, such as Grasso è bello! and Tutta casa, letto e chiesa, which displayed a markedly feminist bent. In 1973, Rame was kidnapped and held by a fascist group commissioned by high ranking officials in Milan’s Carabinieri, the Italian military police. She returned to the stage after two months with new anti-fascist monologues.
Well, it was a success! Officially. The productions at this year’s SummerWorks Festival were brave, inspiring and thrilling. ARC was honoured to be in such fabulous company.
NOW Magazine came out with their annual “best of the fest” list and we were there!
“Out at Sea” was included in…
Other ARC member’s shows that were recognized…
“Elora Gorge”, starring Janet Porter
“Strange Mary Strange”, starring Emma Mackenie Hillier
Congrats to everyone involved in this year’s festival. It was a blast!
Opening night for “Out at Sea” was a smashing success. Thanks to everyone who came out, and thanks to Summerworks for hosting us.
The show has been getting some great buzz:
From BarczaBlog:
Director Aleksandar Lukac sharply delineated the conflicts between the principals. Andre Sills played the alpha to perfection, dominating the stage with his voice and physical presence. Once you get that this strange world will be his, it all devolves into the struggle of the others for their own small place.
John Fitzgerald Jay, Gordon Bolan, and Sam Malkin are all delightfully different from one another in pacing, voice, and physical style. Their ensemble work is very musical, in the sense of supportively balancing one another for the overall effect.
From Now Magazine:
Aleksandar Lukac’s economical production of Slawomir Mrozek’s absurdist parable builds some sharp comedic moments thanks to the distinct, spot-on performances of Andre Sills, Gordon Bolan and a hilariously feckless John Fitzgerald Jay.
From Mooney on Theatre:
For those of us with a darker sense of humour the play hits all the right notes. As one might expect from a company called Actors Repertory Company,the performers are uniformly strong and have a great dynamic. The direction is superb, from the innovative use of the stage’s space to the perfectly comedically timed introduction of a series of ridiculous props.
So, come see it! We’re at the Factory Theatre Mainspace, and we have three performances left: Aug. 10, aka tonight (10:00pm), Aug. 12 (5:00pm), and Aug. 14 (7:30pm). Tickets are $15, available at 416 504 7529, artsboxoffice.ca, or at the door.
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