May 6: Lucia Frangione, LEAVE OF ABSENCE reading, PTC

Lucia has been working away on a new script, LEAVE OF ABSENCE. It got a first round at Alberta Theatre Projects. Then Pacific Theatre came up with a grant to commission more rewrites and hire D.D. Kugler to dramaturg, and drew Playwrights Theatre Centre into the process: they've paid actors and Morris Ertman (the director), provided workshop space. Cia's also gotten subsequent grant support from a couple other sources - Canada Council, I think maybe?

Anyhow, Playwrights Theatre Centre has chosen the play to present as part of their New Play Festival. It's slated for Sunday May 6 at 8pm, I'm guessing at the PTC venue on Granville Island. It's not updated at their website yet, but hopefully soon!

REMNANTS: Violins needed - broken violins, student violins, violins with strings missing....

Okay, the director for our upcoming show has some bizarre ideas.

He wants to try using violins in the show. More for effects than for music making. Like, maybe eight of the darn things? Or more?

We don't want violins that are worth tons of money. Broken violins are fine. Violins with one string. Half-size and quarter-size student violins. Violas.

And a a commensurate number of bows, if possible. Again: cheap, broken, whatever.

None of them can look modern. No chin rests, no plastic, no blue paint, no pickups.

CAN YOU HELP?

Got one in your storage room? Did Auntie Erma play the fiddle? Got a local musical instrument repair shop you could ask at? Junk stores, anything? We want to borrow (or be given), not to rent: rentals cost too much moolah.

And Herr Direcktor wants as many as possible for the first day of rehearsal. April 30. (But if you read this after April 30, and you might have something for us, IT MAY NOT BE TOO LATE!!!)

Got a fiddle? Got a lead? Email prop mistress Kerri Norris (kdnorth@hotmail.com) or stage manager Lois Dawson (dawson.lois@gmail.com).

We'll give you comps. And all our love.

Thanks!

Pacific Theatre’s 2007-2008 Season Screams Blockbuster & Popcorn with its “PT Goes to the Movies” Theme

Pacific Theatre’s 2007-2008 Season Screams Blockbuster & Popcorn with its “PT Goes to the Movies” Theme

Vancouver, BC – April 17, 2007 (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)

Pacific Theatre is thrilled to announce its “PT Goes to the Movies” 2007-2008 subscription season – a blockbuster year of five arresting Mainstage productions and three powerful Second Stage events. Spanning 500 years and crossing the Atlantic, Pacific Theatre’s 24th season promises a wide range of soul-searching stage plays, that are also screen-plays, at astonishingly low subscription prices.

Artistic Director Ron Reed is pleased to have reunited a long history of talented company members for the 2007-08 season, having hand-picked plays with specific actors in mind. This season also looks forward to the development of a number of new plays, and is anticipating numerous world premieres for its 2008-09 season. The 2007-08 season includes:

I ain’ no dog and I ain’ no chile and I ain’ jes a back of the neck you look at while you goin’ where you want to go.
DRIVING MISS DAISY
By Alfred Uhry
October 11 – November 10 (opens Oct.12)

“The comedy that won a Pulitzer Prize.”Atlanta, 1948. On the verge of the Civil Rights upheaval, an aging Jewish widow – “stubborn as a small-eyed needle and independent as the Statue of Liberty” – reluctantly surrenders the driver’s seat to Hoke Coburn, a proud, soft-spoken black man and a Southern Baptist who over the course of 25 years becomes not only her chauffeur, but, against all odds, her best friend.

Featuring Tom Pickett and Erla Faye Forsyth, Paul Moniz de Sa. Sarah Rodgers, director.



Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?
THIS WONDERFUL LIFE

By Steve Murray
November 29 – December 29 (opens Nov.30)

“Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! How could it be anything else?
It’s Christmas Eve in a wartime New England town. Despairing over a life of compromise and dreams deferred, George Bailey sets out to throw himself from a bridge – until a dotty angel-in-waiting shows him what might have been. A single actor brings 35 characters to life in this imaginative tour-de-force. A beloved holiday with a theatrical twist.

Featuring Dan Amos. Morris Ertman, director.


And when the last law was cut down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

By Robert Bolt
January 24 – February 23 (opens Jan.25)

Produced by Midnight Theatre Collective
When Henry VIII sets out to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boelyn, he seeks the support of England’s Lord Chancellor – revered scholar, lawyer, and churchman Sir Thomas More. More’s quiet defiance ignites a ferocious battle between church and state, faith and politics, as he struggles to avoid the dreadful, inevitable choice – between King and conscience, loyalty and martyrdom.

Featuring Ron Reed, Damon Calderwood, Dirk Van Stralen, Julia Mackey, Adam Bergquist. Jeremy Tow, director.


A long time ago, I was sent far away. When they let me come back, all my friends were gone.
THE WOODSMAN

By Steven Fechter
April 3 – April 26 (opens Apr.4)

“An unforgivable act. A chance to start over. A fight for redemption.”
Walter is guilty of the unpardonable: he is a pedophile. Returning home after twelve years in prison, he attempts to forge a new life – to restrain his darkest impulses. Every minute of every day. For the rest of his life.

Featuring Dirk Van Stralen, Rebecca deBoer, Michael Kopsa, and Camille Beaudoin. Morris Ertman, director.


Tony’s too nice a boy to wake up twenty years from now with nothing in his life but stocks and bonds. Mixed up and unhappy, the way you are.
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

By George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart
May 15 – June 14 (opens May 16)
“You’ll love them all for giving you the swellest time you’ve ever had!”
It’s the middle of the Great Depression, but there’s nothing depressing about life in the Vanderhof-Sycamore household – they dance, they make plays, they make music and babies and revolutionary tracts, and fireworks in the basement. All is peaceful anarchy until Alice, the white sheep of the family, brings home her all-too-ordinary Wall Street boyfriend…

An Emerging Artist Showcase / Theatre at TWU Co-Production. Ron Reed, director.



SECOND STAGE

TWELVE ANGRY MEN
By Reginald Rose
September 19-22

“Life Is In Their Hands – Death Is On Their Minds! It explodes like 12 sticks of dynamite!”

Twelve men are corralled in an over-heated jury room, their guilty verdict stalled by the lone juror who feels there may be "reasonable doubt." An open and shut case escalates into a searing examination of conscience. Staged reading - five performances only!


Featuring Michael Kopsa, Ron Reed, Tim Dixon, Francis Boyle, Frank Nickel, Steve Waldschmidt, J.P. Allen, David Nykl. Ian Farthing, director.

SIDE SHOW – A NIGHT AT THE IMPROV
Hilarious, at-the-movies-themed comedy, clad in all the chaos of a Hollywood dressing room. Let the melodrama begin!
February 28 – March 1


CHRISTMAS PRESENCE
A Pacific Theatre Tradition
This evening of stories, songs, comedy, and nostalgia will feel like the live version of an evening watching your Christmas-time favourites on TV.
In the City at Pacific Theatre – Dec. 9-10
Benefit Performance for Holy Trinity – Dec. 11
In the Valley at the Matsqui Centennial Auditorium – Dec.15


NEW THIS YEAR
STAGE & SCREEN SERIES
Nov.6, Dec.4, Feb.19, Apr.22, Jun.10
How does a play become a film? How does a film become a play? Artistic Director Ron Reed is joined by PT artists and film industry professionals in hosting a series of interactive evenings that explore the relationship between these unique story-telling mediums.

MUSIC AT PACIFIC
Brian Mix, Artistic Director
Oct.4, Feb.17, May 25
A new chamber music series on the Pacific Theatre stage. Three concerts of music connected to the themes, characters and settings of the season’s plays, performed by some of Vancouver’s finest classical musicians.


Pacific Theatre continues to make excellent professional theatre accessible with remarkably affordable subscriptions starting at only $55 for four shows. Pacific Theatre has also launched new and improved websales – buy all your single tickets online at pacifictheatre.org

Grace talkback, TWU

Great experience today. Each Friday the Trinity Western theatre department holds their Integration Forum, where all the theatre department folks gather to hear guest speakers, kick around matters of faith and art, all that. Today, three of the cast members of GRACE, plus director Angela Konrad (who chairs Theatre at TWU) and yours truly. Best talkback I've ever been part of (though we had some extraordinary ones after PRODIGAL SON) - a full hour and a half talking about the play itself, how it does what it does, what we make of it, all that. Substantial, thoughtful - really enhanced my appreciation of the play.

One student shared a favourite book of poetry with me following the session, and showed me one poem in particular that ties in to the play. Absolutely. Here's an excerpt...

Pry Me Off Dead Center

O persistent God,
Deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.
Pressure me that I may grow more human,
Not through the lessening of my struggles, but through an expansion of them
That will undamn me
And unbury my gifts.

From Guerrillas Of Grace: Prayers For The Battle
by Ted Loder

Returning Vancouverite Loves GRACE

Our Box Office Received this E-mail about Grace:

I am a Vancouverite who just returned home after living and working in Toronto for three years. As an actress, I took advantage of the constant stream of theatre to be seen in Toronto, some amazing, some less impressive, but each a valuable experience in some form. As a bit of a welcome home my best friend (who rarely goes out to see theatre) got us tickets to see Grace last night. We were both blown away. From opposite ends of the spectrum - from someone who sees a lot of theatre to my friend who doesn't gravitate towards it much - we met on a common ground of astonishment after your production. Every actor served the story and its believability entirely.

What a brave endeavour by all to house the Canadian premier of this play in a theatre with a Spiritual/Christian mandate. Thanks for one of the most incredible theatre experiences I've had yet and for such an impressive re-introduction to theatre in my hometown.